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PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

Religion & belief fact checks

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

3,371 published reviews in this topic

YouturnReligion & belief

கொல்கத்தாவில் உள்ள காளி மாதா மந்திரில் ஸ்ரீ ராமகிருஷ்ண பரமஹம்சர் நடத்திய பூஜையில் நூற்றுக்கணக்கான முஸ்லீம்கள் கோவில் முன்னால் நின்று பூஜைகளை நிறுத்துமாறு கூச்சலிட்டனர். (அமைதி மார்க்கத்தினர்) யார் யாரை தடுப்பது.

Publisher’s rating: Fake

FACTLYReligion & belief

Image of ISKCON monk from Bangladesh who died in the recent attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The post presented an image of a monk serving food to Muslim men as a picture of Swamy Nitai Das, allegedly killed in recent attacks on an ISKCON temple in Bangladesh. FACTLY checked both the reported deaths and the image’s provenance. It says ISKCON’s report named two devotees killed at ISKCON Choumoni—Pranta Chandra Das and Jatan Chandra Saha—and another devotee, Nimai Chandra Das, who was hospitalized; it did not name Swamy Nithai Das among those people. For the image, FACTLY reports that a reverse-image search led to an article carrying the same photograph and identifying it as an Iftar at ISKCON Mayapur in West Bengal in 2016. The article’s caption described an ISKCON monk offering food to Muslims during Iftar at the temple. That provenance places the photograph at a different place and time from the Bangladesh attacks, rather than documenting a death there. FACTLY also reports that ISKCON Mayapur confirmed the photograph was from its Mayapur complex. Its communications director, Yudhisthir Govind Das, identified the monk as Ivan Antic, whose deeksha name was Nitayi Das, and said he had returned to Croatia and was safe and alive. The review therefore distinguishes a real name associated with the monk from the claim that the pictured person died in the attacks.

YouturnReligion & belief

பங்களாதேஷ் இஸ்கான் கோவில் மீது சமீபத்திய தாக்குதலில் இறந்த சுவாமி நிதிதாஸ் பிரபு இவர்தான். கடந்த ரமலான் 30 நாட்களும் ரோசாவிற்கு பிறகு இப்தார் ஏற்பாடு செய்து முஸ்லீம்களுக்கு உணவளித்தார்.

Publisher’s rating: Fake

dpaReligion & belief

Sarah-Lee Heinrich hat geschrieben: "Juden und asiaten sind keine Menschen..."

Publisher’s rating: Der Screenshot ist manipuliert, im Original schrieb Heinrich im Jahr 2016, dass Juden und Asiaten «keine weissen Menschen» seien.

The claim concerns a screenshot attributed to Sarah-Lee Heinrich that says Jews and Asians are not human. The review says the screenshot circulated after Heinrich was elected co-chair of the Green Youth, and that it purported to show a message she had written as a teenager. The key distinction is that the alleged screenshot omits a word that changes the statement’s meaning. The review identifies the underlying tweet as one Heinrich posted in November 2016. It reports that the tweet said Jews and Asians were “not white people,” not that they were not human. Comparing that wording with the circulating screenshot, the review notes that the word “white” is missing and says it was evidently deleted, changing the tweet’s meaning. The review also explains a limitation of the original-media record: Heinrich’s original tweet was no longer online. It reports that she had apologized for discriminatory and tendentious tweets, and quotes a later interview in which she said that discriminatory remarks she posted when younger were wrong and hurtful. This context documents her response; the review’s comparison of the reported original wording with the screenshot is what addresses the disputed alteration.

FACTLYReligion & belief

Image of Akhilesh Yadav disrespecting Hindu customs by serving food to a woman during Navratri with his shoes on

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The post’s allegation was that Akhilesh Yadav served food to a woman during Navratri while wearing shoes, disrespecting Hindu customs. FACTLY identifies the image as an event from 2016, not a recent Navratri celebration: it says the photograph was taken at the launch of the Hausala Nutrition Scheme, which provided hot, nutritious meals to pregnant women and malnourished children. To check the image’s provenance, FACTLY reports that a reverse image search returned news articles publishing the same photograph in 2016. The review also says Yadav shared the image on Twitter with a description identifying the scheme. Together, those references place the image in the scheme’s launch, rather than the claimed Navratri setting. The footwear detail is not wholly invented: FACTLY says news agencies reported that people objected to Yadav wearing footwear while serving the pregnant woman, with his feet visible close to the food plate. But that detail does not establish the post’s claimed timing. The review’s central finding is that an older photograph was recirculated as though it showed recent Navratri festivities.

FACTLYReligion & belief

Image of a Mosque is being built on Hyderabad – Warangal highway, near Bhongir in Telangana

Publisher’s rating: MISLEADING

The post identified in the review claimed that an image showed a mosque being built on the Hyderabad–Warangal highway near Bhongir, Telangana. The investigation instead identifies the structure in the image as a dargah, a religious shrine, on NH163. It reports that the image shows reconstruction of the shrine’s damaged wall, not construction of a mosque. To trace the image, the review says a reverse-image search led to a September 9, 2019, tweet by the Legal Rights Protection Forum (LRPF), which shared the same image and described unauthorized construction of a religious structure on NH163 near Bhongir. The review also cites an NHAI letter from November 2019 seeking removal of the structure. According to the letter as described in the review, the dargah was present during highway widening in 2010–12; after a vehicle damaged its walls in April–May 2018, the community began rebuilding them in September 2019. The review reports that NHAI sought relocation on road-safety grounds and that the authorities later removed the dargah. LRPF shared images of its removal in April 2021. This chronology explains the image’s setting: it depicts work on a dargah’s damaged wall, rather than a mosque being newly built, and the structure was subsequently removed.