An image is being shared on social media claiming it is a picture of a burqa-clad Qatari news anchor who was expressing her concern over religious freedom in India. This post mentioned the news anchor’s name as Fatima Sheikh. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Photo of a burqa-clad Qatari news anchor expressing concern over religious freedom in India.
Fact: The photo shared in the post shows a picture of Khatereh Ahmadi, an Afghanistan TV anchor working at the ‘TOLO News’ channel in Kabul, Afghanistan. The Taliban government in Afghanistan had enforced an order mandating all-female TV news anchors in the country to cover their faces while on-air. Following the Taliban orders, on 22 May 2022, Khatereh Ahmadi was seen covering her face while reading the news on the ‘TOLOnews’. The image does not show a Qatari news anchor. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
On reverse image search of the photo shared in the post, the same photo was found published by the ‘Associated Press’ news agency on 22 May 2022. The description of the photo states, “TV anchor Khatereh Ahmadi bows her head while wearing a face covering as she reads the news on TOLO NEWS, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, May 22, 2022”.
The Taliban government in Afghanistan enforced an order mandating all-female TV news anchors in the country to cover their faces while on-air. Following the Taliban orders, on 22 May 2022, Khatereh Ahmadi was seen covering her face while reading the news on the ‘TOLOnews‘. Reporting the same, several other news websites have also published articles. A few of them can be seen here and here.
On 09 June 2022, a Twitter user named ‘Advisor Zaidu’ had tweeted this photo with a similar claim that was made in the post. In the bio section of this Twitter handle, it is stated that all the tweets made from the Twitter handle are fake and any resemblance to any person dead or alive is purely coincidental. The photo shared in the post does not show a journalist in Qatar.
To sum it up, an Afghanistan journalist’s photo is shared as picture of burqa-clad Qatari news anchor expressing her concern over religious freedom in India.
