Thousands of views and comments were garnered by a social media video whose editors claimed it was about recent demonstrations that erupted in eastern Saudi Arabia’s Qatif governorate against the authorities.
The video shows a large crowd of people dressed in white on a street at night.
However, the allegation is incorrect, as the old video was posted 10 years ago on news sites, as it was for the funeral of a man killed during a security chase.
“Mass demonstrations by Qatif citizens in Saudi Arabia,” the accompanying commentary read. The posts garnered thousands of views and shares on Facebook and Twitter.
What do we know about Qatif?
Qatif, located in the oil-rich eastern region where the majority of the Shiite minority resides, has witnessed security disturbances of varying severity since 2011, which the authorities attribute to “terrorists” or drug dealers.
Shiites make up between 10 and 15 percent of the kingdom’s population of 33 million, according to Agence France Presse.
No credible local media has published any news of the demonstrations taking place in Qatif’s streets, and AFP reporters in Saudi Arabia have not received information that Qatif has witnessed any such developments recently.
Inspection through search engines showed it was posted on YouTube on Sept. 30, 2012, as part of funeral ceremonies for those killed by authorities, according to the video’s publishers, whose exact circumstances cannot be established.
But three days earlier, i.e. on September 27, 2012, the Saudi Interior Ministry had already announced the death of a wanted security guard in Qatif Governorate and one of his escorts, after they opened fire on security men in the Awamiya city.
The mere publication of the video ten years ago denies that these were recent demonstrations, as the misleading publications claimed.
