On May 18, 2024, a picture was shared on social media platform X showing anti-Pakistan graffiti on the walls of a hostel in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. However, the graffiti is actually old, dating back to 2013 from Irish capital Dublin.
Anti-Pakistan graffiti on the walls of hostels in Bishkek
The iVerify Pakistan team has checked this content and established that it is false.
To arrive at this verdict, the team conducted a reverse image examination of the picture of the graffiti.
On May 18, 2024, an Afghan user, who is also an author according to his X bio, shared a picture on X showing anti-Pakistan graffiti with the caption, “No one likes Pakistanis, this is written all over the hostels and apartments in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.”
The post garnered 69,000 views on X.
The same claim was shared by other X users as well here, here and here.
The iVerify Pakistan team sought to determine the veracity of the claim due to its virality and the public’s keen interest in the matter of Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, where international students, including Pakistanis, were attacked by locals.
To investigate the circulated picture, the iVerify Pakistan team conducted a reverse image search and found a news story dated November 12, 2013, from Irish news outlet The Journal with the headline, “Racist graffiti scrawled on walls during Halal store ransacking”.
According to the story, the graffiti was written on the walls of a halal food store that was ransacked between Nov 2-3, 2013.
The racist graffiti included ethnic slurs such as “Pakis Out” and “Niggrs Out”.
The images were shared before that on Nov 8, 2013, by a Dublin-based Facebook user who said vandals and possible racists had trashed a halal store in Cookstown Industrial Estate in Tallaght, South Dublin.
According to Pakistan’s ambassador in Kyrgyzstan, “local extremists” had attacked six hostels housing international students and their private residences, injuring 14 students, in the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek on the night of May 17, 2024.
Videos of a fight between Kyrgyz and Egyptian students on May 13, 2024, went viral that night, provoking an unruly group of protesters to attack hostels of medical universities where a large number of Pakistanis and students from other countries resided.
The government subsequently initiated special flights to evacuate Pakistani students from Bishkek.
The iVerify Pakistan team has determined that the claim regarding anti-Pakistan graffiti in Bishkek is false since the picture is an old one.
The circulated picture is an old one from Ireland’s capital of Dublin from a case of a halal store’s vandalism in November 2013.
November 12, 2013, The Journal news report:
https://www.thejournal.ie/halal-store-trashed-graffiti-dublin-1171599-Nov2013/#slide-slideshow2
November 8, 2013, Facebook post:
https://www.facebook.com/muslimsisterofeire.eire/posts/pfbid02fN5VZVzZusSyxitk8unZfe3VrRz7oERi3Bfi5f9Avu16ZBvuruKfRVZCaCWyAGCsl
