CLAIM: Video: Two South African Women Arrested in Zimbabwe for not Having their Passport on Them.
SOURCE: Opera News
VERDICT: False
The claim was made in response to Zimbabwean Hopewell Chin’ono, who had, on October 6, tweeted that a Zimbabwean on a business trip to South Africa had been arrested while he was out with friends, for not having his passport on him.
In response, a number of Twitter accounts claimed that this was similar to what Zimbabwean police had done to two South African women who had forgotten their passports in their hotel while visiting in the country, here, here and here.
These tweets were retweeted a number of times.
Some of the people making this claim were posting a link from Opera News as the source of the claim.
The Beitbridge Border Post (Source: Min of Information)
Opera News Article
The link provided leads to an undated article headlined, “Video: Two South African Women Arrested in Zimbabwe for not Having their Passport on Them”.
The article does not quote any source nor identify the women allegedly arrested nor when the incident happened nor where.
The article makes a number of unsubstantiated and inflammatory statements such as; ‘.. if actually Zimbabweans should be in the position of South Africa today and vice versa, South Africans would be treated as less humans by Zimbabwean nationals in their country’; ‘… Zimbabwe police are abusing South Africans. The way they were threatening them, also promising to shoot them, one guy even risked his life to accompany the ladies to the police station to make sure they were safe’; ‘… Zimbabwe police were also threatening the guy who accompanied the ladies to leave the police premises, but the guy refused to leave’; and, ‘… South Africans are badly treated in Zimbabwe while Zimbabweans are protected in South Africa’.
The article does not provide any evidence to back these statements. The video used is posted on a link, which is provided here. The video does not show any armed officers nor does it show the police officers ‘threatening the guy who accompanied the ladies to leave the police premises’. On the contrary, someone is heard telling the man that he is free to accompany the ladies and the vehicle is free to escort the ladies to the station. The recording does not show what happened at the station or if the people being recorded did end up at the station.
While the word passport is mentioned, the video is unclear on whether anyone has been arrested or for what offence.
However, from the recorded conversation, it is clear that the police were indeed, asking the two ladies to go to the police station.
How to verify information
Before sharing information, it is important for content consumers to do basic verification, especially for inflammatory content.
Here are a few verification tips:
Follow the evidence
Do not just read an article, follow the links provided for the evidence. For example, instead of one just reading the Opera News article, it is important to also look for the video and watch it.
Check the website
Not all websites providing ‘news’ are legitimate sources of credible information. The article in question is full of grammatical errors and quotes no sources. The link it provides as its source leads to a suspended account on Twitter.
Check other reliable sources
Check on other credible media sources to see if the same incident has been covered. In this case, the article is only found on this website.
Conclusion
The claim that two South African women were arrested in Zimbabwe for not having their passports on them; and subsequent claims in the article that police were threatening the people in the video and promising to shoot them, have all been rated as false as there is no evidence of this on the article or shared video.
