CLAIM: A video taken from a balcony shows a sea of protesters packing the street outside former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s London home in response to this week’s arrest of former Prime Minister Imran Khan.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The video shows a protest outside Sharif’s residence in April 2022. That protest was over Khan being ousted as prime minister.
THE FACTS: Numerous videos circulating online this week do show unrest and protests in response to Khan’s arrest on corruption charges, including in London. However, some social media users are sharing a video of the 2022 protest, falsely claiming it is recent.
The video appears to be taken from a balcony, looking down on a London street filled with protestors, many holding protest signs and waving Pakistan’s flag. Horns are blaring in the background as a large crowd surrounds multiple cars on a street.
“Imran Khan protest goes global – A large number of Pakistanis are protesting Imran Khan’s arrest in front of Nawaz Sharif’s house in London,” reads one post sharing the video on Twitter with more than 20,000 likes as of Friday.
Another Twitter post reads, “Pakistanis all over the world are angry of #ImranKhan abduction.”
The video does show a protest outside Avenfield House in Mayfair, which were revealed to be owned by Sharif’s family in the so-called Panama Papers. Sharif was ousted as prime minister in 2015 after being convicted of financial irregularities revealed in the leaked documents; he has been living in self-imposed exile in London since 2019 after authorities released him on bail so that he could travel abroad to seek medical treatment.
However, the video is from a protest that took place outside the building on April 17, 2022, after Khan was ousted in a parliamentary no-confidence vote a week earlier. Sharif’s brother, Shahbaz Sharif, then became Pakistan’s prime minister.
Longer versions of the same footage were posted to social media on April 17, 2022. Several similar photos of the protest were also posted on Twitter the same day. The video and these images show key similarities, such as two black cars in the exact same place on the street.
Several UK news outlets also reported on protests taking place in London outside of Sharif’s residence on April 17, 2022.
Local and Pakistani news outlets have also reported on protests in London in response to Khan’s arrest this week. The former prime minister is facing around 100 criminal cases filed against him by various government agencies.
Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Thursday ruled Khan’s arrest was illegal and, while it freed him from custody, it ordered him kept under protection of security forces in a safe location in the capital, Islamabad, according to Associated Press reporting.
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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.
