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PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

Crime & justice fact checks

Explore claims publishers have checked about crime & justice. Read their original ratings and follow the evidence.

6,854 published reviews in this topic

FACTLYCrime & justice

RSS men dressed in Indian army uniforms kidnapping Kashmiri women for using them as sex slaves.

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

FACTLY investigated an image circulated with the claim that RSS members, dressed in Indian Army uniforms, were kidnapping Kashmiri women to use as sex slaves. Its account identifies the image’s actual setting as a police action against an SFI protest in Andhra Pradesh, rather than an abduction in Kashmir: the protest was against closing social welfare hostels, and the people shown were police personnel and a girl being taken by police. The review describes the claim as being made about the image, not as evidence of a separate kidnapping event. [S1: “The image is actually that of a police action during an SFI protest against closing down of social welfare hostels in Andhra Pradesh.”] The review says it used reverse-image searches to trace the image and examined visible uniform and insignia details. It reports that the man’s clothing was khaki police uniform, not Indian Army dress, and that the shoulder badge belonged to the Andhra Pradesh Police, not Kashmir Police. Those details conflict with the post’s identification of the people as army-uniformed RSS members and the location as Kashmir. [S1: “On observing the image carefully, one can easily distinguish that the dress worn by the man assaulting the girl is not the Indian Army dress as claimed in the Facebook post. It is a ‘Khaki’ uniform typically worn by Police in various states of India.”] [S1: “In the image, the badge seen on the Police’s shoulder is not that of Kashmir Police. It is the badge worn by personnel of Andhra Pradesh Police department.”] FACTLY also reports finding the same image in a 2016 CPI(M) tweet describing a police assault during an SFI protest over hostel closures. This provides an earlier, event-specific provenance for the image and supports the review’s identification of the scene as Andhra Pradesh protest policing, not the alleged kidnapping. [S1: “The tweet had the following description with it- ‘Brutal Police assault on SFI protest against closing down of social welfare hostels in Andhra Pradesh’.”]

Deutsche Presse-AgenturCrime & justice

In einem Blog-Beitrag wird behauptet, ein Migrant habe in Pinneberg in Schleswig-Holstein eine ältere Frau vergewaltigt. Die Medien würden die Tat verschweigen, heißt es weiter.

Publisher’s rating: Den Vorfall gab es tatsächlich, allerdings ist nicht bekannt, ob der Täter ein Migrant ist. Mehrere Medien berichteten über den Fall.

The dpa review says that a police press release described the perpetrator as having a “southern-looking appearance,” but that his precise origin was unknown. The description therefore did not establish that he was a migrant. A police spokesperson told dpa that the investigation was still ongoing on 16 August 2019, so the review does not present the suspect’s background as resolved. The allegation that media were concealing the incident is contradicted by the review’s account of coverage: it names the Hamburger Abendblatt and RTL as outlets that reported on the case. Thus, the evidence cited addresses both parts of the blog claim: the incident itself was real, but the available description did not establish the alleged perpetrator’s migrant status, and the case had been covered by media.

NewtralCrime & justice

Vídeo de una agresión haciendo en mataleón en Zaragoza

Publisher’s rating: Falso

The claim concerns a video of a man being attacked with a mataleón technique, which social-media posts said had happened in Zaragoza and involved unaccompanied foreign minors. Newtral’s investigation concluded that the video was not recorded in Zaragoza: it identifies the location as Casablanca, Morocco, and says both the Zaragoza attribution and the claim about the people shown were false. The Zaragoza police also confirmed to Newtral that the video had not been filmed in the city. The investigation describes two checks supporting the location finding. A reverse-image search of frames from the video led Newtral to reporting by Moroccan media, and the video itself contained the date July 26. The review says those reports placed the incident in Casablanca. It also reports that Morocco’s General Directorate of National Security posted the footage on Facebook on July 29 and said one of the men had been arrested the previous day. According to the review, the assault occurred near a Casablanca market and was carried out to steal the victim’s phone. The Zaragoza context helps explain how the false location became attached to the footage, but does not make the video evidence of a Zaragoza assault. The review says the posts began circulating after reports of violent or intimidating robberies in Zaragoza between August 2 and 4; it also notes that those robberies’ dates did not match the date shown in the video. The Zaragoza police separately reported four arrests for robberies using the mataleón method. That information concerns robberies in Zaragoza, while the reviewed footage is identified as showing an earlier incident in Casablanca.

Deutsche Presse-AgenturCrime & justice

In einem Blog-Beitrag wird behauptet, ein afrikanischer Migrant habe sich in Potsdam mehrmals vor zwei 14-jährigen Mädchen entblößt. Später hätte die Polizei den Mann festgenommen. Der Artikel ist bebildert mit Polizisten, die einen Mann kontrollieren

Publisher’s rating: Die genaue Herkunft des Täters ist nicht bekannt und es gab auch keine Festnahme. Zudem passt das Bild nicht zu dem Vorfall.

The blog post’s central account combines three assertions: that a man who exposed himself repeatedly to two 14-year-old girls in Potsdam was an African migrant, that police later arrested him, and that the accompanying image showed police checking that man. The review confirms the reported incident itself, but distinguishes it from those additional claims: it says the man’s origin was uncertain and that he had only been described as having a “southern” appearance. The excerpt does not identify him as African.