A 2017 video of Railway Police thrashing a suspected pickpocket in Indonesia is falsely shared as an assault on a Uyghur Muslim in China
A video going viral on social media (here and here) shows a man being brutally beaten by two individuals in camouflage uniforms and another who appears to be wearing a police uniform. The video is being shared with the claim that a Uyghur Muslim in China was assaulted by Chinese soldiers after a copy of the Quran was found in his house. Let’s verify the claim made in the post through this article.
Claim: The video shows a Uyghur Muslim in China being assaulted by a Chinese soldier after a copy of the Quran was found in his house.
Fact: The video shows an incident in Jakarta, Indonesia, where a suspected pickpocket, Fery Ansyah, was beaten by a railway police officer at Depok Baru Railway Station on 13 May 2017. Ansyah had been involved in multiple thefts on trains and had been arrested several times. Frustrated by his repeated offences, a railway police officer assaulted him. The officer was later dismissed after the video went viral. The incident has no connection to China or Uyghur Muslims. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
A reverse image search of the keyframes from the viral video led us to multiple reports from May 2017 that featured screenshots from the same video (here, here, and here). According to reports, the incident took place on 13 May 2017 at Depok Baru Railway Station in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia. The person being beaten in the viral video is identified as Fery Ansyah, a suspected pickpocket. It is alleged that he was involved in multiple thefts on trains and had been arrested several times in the past. Frustrated by his repeated offences, a railway police officer assaulted him. Following the circulation of the video online, the officer was dismissed from service.
In the process of our investigation, we came across multiple media reports (here, here, here, and here) related to alleged violence and atrocities committed against the minority Uyghur Muslim community in China.
To sum up, the viral video is unrelated to China and Uyghur Muslims, it shows an incident in Indonesia where a suspected pickpocket was beaten by a railway police officer.