Coronavirus: India\'s Alpine flag show and other claims checked

Coronavirus: India's Alpine flag show and other claims checked

Amalgam of images with social media symbols

Misleading information has been spreading in India as the authorities attempt to control the coronavirus with strict restrictions on movement throughout the country.

We've been looking at some of the more widely shared examples.

1. Was a peak in the Alps lit up to thank India?

This claim refers to an image of the Matterhorn, one of the highest mountains in the Alps, straddling the border between Switzerland and Italy, lit up with an image of the Indian flag.

A widely shared tweet by a senior official of the ruling party in India suggests the lightshow was in recognition of India's leading role in combatting the coronavirus.

According to BJP National General Secretary B L Santosh this was because India's Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, had supplied the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine.

The drug has attracted attention as a potential treatment for Covid-19, although there are no completed clinical trials or evidence of its efficacy.

India is one of the largest manufacturers of this drug and has so far agreed to supply hydroxychloroquine to at least 55 countries, although Switzerland is not one of them.

But sending supplies of this drug to other countries is not the reason the Swiss authorities lit up the mountainside with the Indian flag.

The local tourism authority has been illuminating the Matterhorn every day since late March with the flags of many different countries hit by coronavirus "as a sign of hope to the world in difficult times".

You can follow these daily projections here.

2. Is a Muslim man spitting linked to the virus spread?

A video showing a Muslim man spitting is doing the rounds on social media, as concerns mount about growing Islamophobia against the Muslim minority in India.

The video shows the man in a vehicle with police officers, one of whom he spits on.

The original text (in Bengali) roughly translates as: "For those who want proof, here's a video that shows the Jamaatis from Nizamuddin spitting on policemen."

This refers to a large Muslim religious gathering in March by a group known as the Tablighi Jamaat, in the Nizamuddin area of the Indian capital, Delhi.

This gathering was later blamed for helping to spread the virus, with several thousand positive cases linked back to it, according to official figures.

The video of the Muslim man spitting has been shared several thousand times - but it's misleading.

A reverse image search shows it has nothing to do with the religious gathering in Delhi.

It's from a report in February by the Mumbai Mirror, a local newspaper in western India, about a 26-year-old man who was under arrest and got into an argument with police officers about the food he was being given.

The video was shot in Thane, a city on the outskirts of Mumbai, in the Indian state of Maharashtra, and not in Delhi.

3. A model example of Indian social distancing?

Image copyright AFP

Images of proper social distancing said to be from a marketplace in the north-eastern Indian state of Mizoram have been widely shared by Indian users on social media,

They've commented on what a good example it sets to the rest of the country, given widespread concerns about the lack of social distancing in some places.

But these images are misleading because they're not from India - they're from neighbouring Myanmar.

A reverse image search reveals the same images were used this month by Philippines-based ABS-CBN News and other media outlets in South East Asia, saying they are from Myanmar.

The images have also been shared by some Burmese Facebook users, who say they show a market in Myanmar.

And by zooming in on some of these pictures, it's just possible to make out a couple of shop signs and an advertising hoarding written in Burmese script.