A meme repeatedly shared on Facebook and other social media shows a photo of an elderly woman buried in the ground up to her neck, being spoon-fed water.
The text says she is about to be stoned to death.
It reads: “A woman just before being stoned to death in Iran under Shariah laws. At some places on this earth, women’s rights are limited to getting a spoonful of water before stoning. Still want to tell me that Islam is worthy of being part of our civilisation?”
The meme has been shared - and flagged as false - on Facebook in Nigeria and Cameroon.
A reverse image search on Yandex reveals that the photo has been widely published online. The newspaper Arabs Today used it in a report on the US government condemning the execution of Reyhaneh Jabbari, an Iranian woman who was “convicted of killing a man she stabbed in self-defence during a sexual assault”.
Jabbari was 26 at the time of her execution by hanging – despite global appeals – in October 2014 at the Gohardasht Prison in Iran. She bore no resemblance to the woman in the meme, who is older.
A further search of the image without the text brings up similar photos. They include Adobe Stock photos by Reuters photographer Eduardo Munoz, taken on 4 July 2003. The photographer was covering a protest in Cali, a city in the northwestern South American country of Colombia.
The photo’s caption says the woman buried neck-deep in the ground in 2003 was 66-year-old Maria Gabriela Ruiz.
Ruiz and two others, Olmedo Gomez and Nicolas Salazar, buried their bodies in the ground “in protest against the government because 150 displaced persons have not been relocated to a safe sector of Cali”, the caption says. – Allwell Okpi (07/06/2019)
The text says she is about to be stoned to death.
It reads: “A woman just before being stoned to death in Iran under Shariah laws. At some places on this earth, women’s rights are limited to getting a spoonful of water before stoning. Still want to tell me that Islam is worthy of being part of our civilisation?”
The meme has been shared - and flagged as false - on Facebook in Nigeria and Cameroon.
Mistaken for 26-year-old executed for self-defence
A reverse image search on Yandex reveals that the photo has been widely published online. The newspaper Arabs Today used it in a report on the US government condemning the execution of Reyhaneh Jabbari, an Iranian woman who was “convicted of killing a man she stabbed in self-defence during a sexual assault”.
Jabbari was 26 at the time of her execution by hanging – despite global appeals – in October 2014 at the Gohardasht Prison in Iran. She bore no resemblance to the woman in the meme, who is older.
Anti-government protest in Colombia – 16 years ago
A further search of the image without the text brings up similar photos. They include Adobe Stock photos by Reuters photographer Eduardo Munoz, taken on 4 July 2003. The photographer was covering a protest in Cali, a city in the northwestern South American country of Colombia.
The photo’s caption says the woman buried neck-deep in the ground in 2003 was 66-year-old Maria Gabriela Ruiz.
Ruiz and two others, Olmedo Gomez and Nicolas Salazar, buried their bodies in the ground “in protest against the government because 150 displaced persons have not been relocated to a safe sector of Cali”, the caption says. – Allwell Okpi (07/06/2019)
For publishers: what to do if your post is rated false
A fact-checker has rated your Facebook or Instagram post as “false”, “altered”, “partly false” or “missing context”. This could have serious consequences. What do you do?
Click on our guide for the steps you should follow.
Publishers guideAfrica Check teams up with Facebook
Africa Check is a partner in Meta's third-party fact-checking programme to help stop the spread of false information on social media.
The content we rate as “false” will be downgraded on Facebook and Instagram. This means fewer people will see it.
You can also help identify false information on Facebook. This guide explains how.
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