Fact Check: People In Plastic Bags Are NOT Christians Being Killed In Afghanistan -- It's A Protest Performance In Colombia

Fact Check

  • by: Sarah Thompson
Fact Check: People In Plastic Bags Are NOT Christians Being Killed In Afghanistan -- It's A Protest Performance In Colombia Staged Protest

Do these photos depict Christians who refused to deny their faith being suffocated in Afghanistan? No, that's not true: These are video stills taken at a protest performance 8,800 miles from Afghanistan in Medellín, Colombia, on May 26, 2021. The performance happened during the National Strike in Colombia and this performance was intended to be a symbolic tribute to people who had recently been killed.

The false claim appears to have originated in Spanish language posts on September 5, 2021. On September 12, 2021, the claim appeared in English in a post published on the Tolu Ray account on Facebook with this caption:

Alot of evil things is happening around the world,and they're the signs of the End time as the prophecy hath spoken of the signs that will happen before the Rapture of the church.
Those are the Christians who refuse to deny their faith in Christ in Afghanistan, they were tied in nylon to get suffocated till they die.
But remember the word of the master Jesus Christ in John 16:2. But be ye assure of this very thing, he said we have overcometh the world.
No matter what they did to the church, we refuse to compromise,not give up, we have carried our cross,and we can't disembark.
We are still praying

This is how the post looked on September 14, 2021:

Protest02.JPG

(Image source: Facebook screenshot taken on Tue Sep 14 15:05:33 2021 UTC)

This scene is not related to the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan in the late summer of 2021, nor to Christian persecution. This is a scene of a performance protest in Medellín, Colombia. The complex situation has been summarized in an issue brief by the Atlantic Council (a non-partisan foreign policy think tank) in this way:

Amid the third peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Colombia faces the longest and most destructive mass protests in recent history. The protests, which began on April 28, 2021, were triggered by a tax-reform bill proposed by the government to stabilize public debt and fiscal deficit. Despite the bill's removal on May 2, 2021, protests continued and expanded, becoming a broad call for improvements in other areas. To date, dozens of people have died, and thousands have been injured.

The video that was the source of the still images was posted on May 26, 2021 by the Facebook page "Todo Bajo Cero" with the caption:

TODO BAJO CERO was live

Performance "Empaquetados", parque del Poblado, 26 de mayo de 2021.
Un homenaje a las personas que han aparecido muertas en los ultimos dias, ahogadas, en pedazos y en bolsas. En honor a todos los que salieron de sus casas a luchar por sus derechos y no pudieron regresar a casa.

Translated:

EVERYTHING UNDER ZERO was live

Performance "Bundled", Poblado Park, 26 May 2021.
A tribute to the people who have turned up dead in the last days, drowned, in pieces and in bags. In honor of all those who left their homes to fight for their rights and could not return home.

Colombiacheck.com reported in a September 9, 2021, article about the viral false claims, that before this scheduled event happened, the May 26, 2021, march locations in Medellín were announced by caracol.com.co. The El Poblado park activities were described this way:

In the El Poblado park there are plans to carry out different symbolic and cultural activities , such as a performance of people who will put themselves in bags, an artists' carnival, a women's choir in an orchestrated march, among others.

Want to inform others about the accuracy of this story?

See who is sharing it (it might even be your friends...) and leave the link in the comments.:


  Sarah Thompson

Sarah Thompson lives with her family and pets on a small farm in Indiana. She founded a Facebook page and a blog called “Exploiting the Niche” in 2017 to help others learn about manipulative tactics and avoid scams on social media. Since then she has collaborated with journalists in the USA, Canada and Australia and since December 2019 she works as a Social Media Authenticity Analyst at Lead Stories.


 

Read more about or contact Sarah Thompson

About Us

International Fact-Checking Organization Meta Third-Party Fact Checker

Lead Stories is a fact checking website that is always looking for the latest false, misleading, deceptive or inaccurate stories, videos or images going viral on the internet.
Spotted something? Let us know!.

Lead Stories is a:


@leadstories

Subscribe to our newsletter

* indicates required

Please select all the ways you would like to hear from Lead Stories LLC:

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. For information about our privacy practices, please visit our website.

We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By clicking below to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy practices here.

Most Read

Most Recent

Share your opinion