A flyer for an anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protest rally in Mumbai on Friday calling for a 'hijab or burqa' dress code, is photoshopped. BOOM spoke to the organisers of the event and found social media posts of the same poster from earlier in the week which do not mention a dress code at all, proving that the viral image is doctored.
Earlier on Friday, several right wing Twitter handles started tweeting an image of a poster for an anti-CAA rally claiming that the organisers of the 'Massive Women's Protest' in Mumbai have specified the dress code as a hijab or burqa.
The fake image gained currency among growing criticism from the Hindutva right wing that Muslims in India are leading protests against the Act.
The doctored image was shared by Supreme Court lawyer Prashant Umrao Patel, a Delhi based lawyer, who tweeted the photoshopped poster with the caption, "The Protest is against CAA but the dress code is hijab and burqa. Freedom from patriarchy and manuwad will be attained by wearing hijab and burqa. Simply put, this is not a movement across the country, but a show of strength and the patience of the Hindus of the country is being tested."
Click here to view, and here for an archive.
The viral poster reads, "MASSIVE WOMEN'S PROTEST AGAINST CAA, NRC & NPR YMCA GROUND, AGRIPADA, FRIDAY 17TJ JAN, 6PM ONWARDS.
Dress code for women: Hijab or Burqa".
This is not the first time Patel has made claims that have been later found to be blatantly false or misleading. Click here, here and here.
The misleading poster is also being shared on Facebook.
Click here to view, and here for an archive.
Click here to view, and here for an archive.
Click here to view, and here for an archive.
FACT-CHECK
BOOM spoke to one of the organisers of the protest rally organised by Mumbai Citizens Forum who told us that there was no dress code for protesters and that the viral poster was fake. "There is no dress code. The flyer shared is not the right one," Advocate Zubair Azmi told BOOM.
Azmi sent us the original flyer which confirms that the viral flyer is photoshooped. In the original flyer one can spot that the sentence, "Dress code for women: Hijab or Burqa" is not present.
The added text on the photoshopped flyer is in upper case, whereas in the original flyer lower case and the shade of yellow in the sentence does not match.
Additionally, we found social media posts with the original flyer days before the protest that confirm that the original poster did not include any instructions about a dress code. In this Facebook post by Aamir Edresy, one of the organisers, one can spot it includes no dress code for women.
The original flyer can also be spotted in this tweet posted on January 16, 2020, which is on the tweet thread on Anti-CAA protests scheduled in the country.
BOOM also managed to source images from the protest on Friday evening, we found that there were woman who were not wearing a Hijab or a Burqa.
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