A morphed image showing a man escorting three burkha clad women tied with chains has been viral on social media with false claims that the Taliban militia have started enslaving Muslim women after Afghanistan's takeover.
BOOM found that the viral image is edited to include the chain. We contacted the photographer, Istanbul based Murat Duzyol who told us that the original image was clicked by him in Erbil city in 2003.
The image is viral in the backdrop of the armed takeover by the Taliban in Afghanistan. On August 15, the Taliban captured the Presidential Palace in Kabul and dethroned the president Ashraf Ghani led Government. On August 17, a Taliban spokesman said in a press conference, "Women will be granted permissible rights under Sharia law." Meanwhile, human rights groups are concerned about the massive violation of freedom of women in the Taliban regime as during their previous reign between 1996 to 2001, girls as young as 10 year-old were not allowed to go to schools; there was also an order of the use of full veil for women.
One Facebook post reads, "It is being said that the law of karma is unaltered. Once on the soil of Afghanistan, Mahmud Ghaznavi had sold Hindu daughters, the same thing is happening today. Muslim girls are being sold and looted for a penny. This is the messiah of peace....."
(Original text in Hindi: "कहते है कर्म का नियम अटल है. कभी इसी अफगानिस्तान की धरती पर महमूद गज़नवी ने हिन्दू बेटियों को बेचा था , #दुख्तरे_हिन्द ...#दो_दीनार....आज वही मुस्लिम लड़कियों को कौड़ियों के भाव बेचा और लुटा जा रहा है. ये है अमन के मसीहा.....।")
Viral on Twitter
The image is viral on Twitter with misleading claims.
Two such tweets are archived here and here.
Also Read: Photo Of A 2014 Street Play In London Falsely Linked To Afghanistan
Fact Check
BOOM ran a reverse image search on the photograph and found that the image has been edited to include the chains. The original image shows three women walking behind a man.
The image has been featured on several websites, including Fifty Shades of Grey Hair (2014), ModernDiplomacy (2017) and on the Daily Afghanistan in 2018.
We found the same image on a photo gallery of Trek Earth, a website dedicated to the global photography community. The image has been credited to Murat Duzyol. Murat Duzyol is a press photographer, based in Istanbul Turkey.
BOOM reached out to Duzyol who confirmed that the image was clicked in 2003 by him.
He told BOOM, "In 2003 I took this photograph. A condolence ceremony was held for Iraqi civilians killed after Friday prayers in the city of Erbil in northern Iraq. This photo was clicked when people were returning after the meet. It was completely an instant snapshot and natural." Duzyol stated that he was working with a daily newspaper and went to Iraq officially.
Murat Duzyol also shared the original photograph with BOOM. See it below.
He further told BOOM, "The women knew each other, but I'm not sure if they knew the man. During the second Gulf War, I went to Iraq several times and took pictures as a journalist. Unfortunately, many of my photographs have been manipulated. But this photo is mostly circulating on social media. I have warned many people about this several times. But it is still viral," he added.
BOOM has compared the original and morphed image below. The image was first debunked by BOOM Hindi on August 19, 2021.