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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

ஷீரடி சாய்பாபா டிரஸ்ட் .. முஸ்லிம்களின் ஹஜ் யாத்திரைக்காக 35 கோடி நன்கொடை. ஒரு வேளை பூஜைக்கே வழியில்லாத ஏழை இந்துக்கோவில்களுக்கு கூட இப்படி கொடுக்கவில்லையே …ஏன்? இப்போதாவது சிந்தியுங்கள் … சாய்பாபா என்பது இந்துக்களை ஏமாற்ற நடத்தப்படும் ஆன்மீக ஜிஹாத்..

Publisher’s rating: False

FACTLYReligion & belief

Video of Muslims torturing Hindus and forcefully converting them to Islam in Pakistan

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a video said to show Muslims in Pakistan torturing Hindus with electric shocks to force them to convert to Islam. FACTLY says the footage instead shows a man identified as Muhammad Ullah torturing children and young people in the name of exorcism. The review states that Peshawar police arrested Ullah in 2020 and that police and news reports described the alleged abuse as exorcism-related, not as forced religious conversion. (S1: “The videoclips shared in the post shows a fake peer torturing children and youth in the name of exorcism in Pakistan. The fake peer Muhammad Ullah was arrested by Peshawar police in 2020.”) The review describes tracing the footage through reverse image searches of screenshots. It says the search found similar visuals on Facebook, where users described a fake faith healer arrested for torturing children and young people in Pakistan. Further searches led to reporting that identified the arrested man as Muhammad Ullah Buksh Qaddullah and said Peshawar police took him into custody on accusations of electrocuting boys and girls during exorcism. (S1: “On reverse image search of the screenshots of the video, similar visuals of a peer giving electric shocks to children and youth were found on Facebook.”; “This article reported that a fake peer, who was identified as Muhammad Ullah Buksh Qaddullah, was taken into custody by the Peshawar police accusing him of electrocuting boys and girls in the name of exorcism.”) As further corroboration, FACTLY cites a post by Capital City Police Peshawar about the arrest and says it compared a screenshot from the shared video with images posted by police, identifying the man in the footage as Muhammad Ullah. The review also notes that videos of Ullah torturing children appeared on his YouTube channel. These findings support the review’s distinction between footage of abuse presented as exorcism and the claim that the victims were Hindus being forcibly converted. (S1: “The Peshawar police through the tweet stated that Muhammad Ullah was arrested for allegedly torturing children in the name of exorcism.”; “On comparing a screengrab of the video shared in the post with that of the images shared by the Peshawar Police, it can be confirmed that the man electrocuting children and youth in the video was Muhammad Ullah.”)

YouturnReligion & belief

ஹிஜாப் உரிமைக்காகப் போராடிய இந்தப் பெண் ‘முஸ்கான்’ நினைவிருக்கிறதா? அவர் இப்போது லண்டனில் இருக்கிறார். கர்நாடகாவில் பாஜக எதிர்ப்புக்குப் பிறகு வாழ்க்கையும் மாறிவிட்டது! அரசும் மாறிவிட்டது, அவர்கள் வேலையும் முடிந்துவிட்டது!

Publisher’s rating: False

FACTLYReligion & belief

A picture of sandals printed with Lord Ganesha’s images, and a call for the closure of the company responsible for designing these sandals

Publisher’s rating: MISLEADING

The claim concerns a circulating image of sandals printed with Lord Ganesha’s images, shared alongside a call to keep spreading the picture until the company responsible for designing them is closed. FACTLY identifies the sandals as a product released by American Eagle Outfitters in the United States almost two decades before the review. It says the company later withdrew them from sale after backlash from the Hindu community and issued an apology. That history means the post’s call to close the company presents an old controversy as though it were a current one. To investigate the image, FACTLY says it conducted a reverse image search, which led to a closed Change.org petition. The review reports that the petition called for the sandals’ recall and said American Eagle Outfitters had withdrawn them from the market in 2003 and apologized. FACTLY also says it found a 2003 Harvard University article documenting the company’s apology to American Hindus Against Defamation over using Lord Ganesha’s image on flip-flops. The evidence described in the review supports the distinction between the image’s historical origin and the current call to action: the sandals were not newly designed, and the company had already withdrawn them and apologized. The supplied excerpt does not include the underlying petition, Harvard article, or apology itself, so those documents’ full contents cannot be independently assessed here.

FACTLYReligion & belief

Video of a Muslim man offering Namaz prayers on an electricity transmission tower

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a video presented as showing a Muslim man offering namaz on an electricity transmission tower. FACTLY’s review identifies the footage instead as an old incident in Barranquilla, Colombia, involving a young man who climbed a high-voltage tower. It reports that he intended to commit suicide but changed his mind; while climbing down, he accidentally contacted a live wire and was electrocuted. The review therefore says the footage does not show the claimed prayer scene. The review describes its check of the footage: reverse image searches of screenshots led to a video with similar visuals published by Metatube on 17 May 2018. According to FACTLY, that site reported that a young man had died after being electrocuted while trying to get down from a high-voltage tower in Barranquilla. This earlier publication and its description support identifying the circulating footage with the 2018 incident, rather than with the claimed namaz scene. FACTLY further reports that other news websites published details of the incident, which it dates to 13 May 2018. It identifies the man as Victor Jose Arroyo Gonzalez, aged 20, and says he climbed the tower and threatened to throw himself off before changing his mind after listening to police and onlookers. The review’s account is that he was electrocuted while descending. The supplied excerpt does not name the other news websites, so their reporting cannot be independently assessed from this evidence.