A video showing bodies tied to a spit above a fire is evidence of a ‘Hindu Genocide’ in Bangladesh.
False. This video actually shows a theatrical display at an immersive Halloween experience at a theme park in China in 2018.
A video is being shared on social media with the claim that it shows “Hindu genocide in Bangladesh”. But the footage does not come from Bangladesh, and it does not show real human bodies.
The blurry clip [warning: disturbing content] appears to show two bodies tied to a spit rotating above a fire. It has been shared with the caption: “Hindu Gen0cide in Bangladesh .... WAKE UP HINDUS BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE. #bangladeshihindugenocide”.
It was also shared on X with a caption in Hindi saying: “The torture of Hindu brothers and sisters in Bangladesh has reached its peak” (translated by Google).
But this is not a real scene. It is a staged Halloween set at the Chimelong Ocean Kingdom amusement park in Zhuhai, China.
The same set can be seen in a clip shared on Instagram on 31 October 2018 by an account called Galaxy Chimelong, which appears to be part of the Chimelong Group which owns and operates theme parks in China.
Another video shared by a Chinese “micro-magazine” on 17 October 2018 also shows visitors examining the same exhibit, which is clearly not real. The post links to a website promoting Chimelong Ocean Kingdom’s “Halloween theme[d] area” and “immersive experience” (translated by Google).
Moreover, the same set also appears in a video montage shared on YouTube on 27 October 2018 with the caption: “Halloween Party at Chimelong Ocean Park | Zhuhai, China”.
This is not the first time the video has been miscaptioned. According to an article published by Chinese-language newspaper Sin Chew, it was shared with claims it showed a restaurant in Nigeria that was closed down for serving human meat. It has also been shared with claims that it shows cannibalism in Haiti, according to fact checkers in India.
There have been recent protests in India over the alleged mistreatment of minority Hindu communities in Bangladesh.
We’ve written about many other images and videos presented in false contexts, including a photo claiming to show a woman being stoned in Iran (which was actually a staged protest in Colombia) and a clip supposedly showing ‘migrants’ cooking a stray dog in Dublin (which was really a hog roast).
Our guides on verifying misleading images and videos provide some useful tips on how you can check whether something is reliable.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because the photo shows a set for a Halloween party at an amusement park in China, not a ‘Hindu Genocide” in Bangladesh.
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