An old video of huge crowds parading through a street has resurfaced in social media posts falsely claiming to show protesters in Bangladesh demonstrating against employment quotas. The footage was in fact filmed in Samawah, Iraq, and has been circulating online since at least July 2023 in TikTok posts about a procession marking the Islamic festival of Ashura.
“Protest against quotas in Bangladesh,” read the Bengali caption of one Youtube video who shared the images on July 18.
The video features a text in Bengali that also shows protests against labor quotas, which have led to widespread unrest in the South Asian country.
At least 191 people, including several police officers, were killed in the violence, according to a July 25 AFP report of casualties reported by police and hospitals.
What started on July 1st as student protests against politicized admission quotas for coveted government positions led to some of the worst unrest during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s tenure.
The video also spread on Facebook here And here.
Iraq procession
A reverse image search found a longer version from the video posted to TikTok on July 29, 2023 (archived link).
According to the Arabic-language report, the images show a procession in Samawah in southern Iraq.
Below is a screenshot of the mistakenly shared video (left) and the TikTok video (right):