Claim: Visuals of Turkish soldiers executing contractors for their shoddy work.
A video showing handcuffed men being executed by armed men is being shared widely. It is being shared with a claim that video shows Turkish soldiers shooting contractors for their shoddy work, which resulted in death of thousands of innocent people. Through this article let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
According to Turkey's disaster management authority, Turkey experienced one of the deadliest earthquakes in February 2023, with over 45,000 deaths.
The situation was made worse by the collapse of thousands of buildings. Even the newly constructed apartments, which were built to withstand the earthquake, gave way. Following this, the authorities began to scrutinize the building contractors for their subpar work, which resulted in an increase in fatalities. News reports claim that warrants have been issued by the authorities, and even a few arrests have been made.
Despite the recent earthquake, there are no such reports of contractor mass executions.
Reverse image search of the screenshots of the viral video yielded multiple news reports, that reported about the same visuals in 2022 (here & here). As per these reports, the visuals show Syrian army executing dozens of civilians in Tadamon, near Damascus, during the Syrian civil war. These articles reported that the revelation was part of the Guardian investigation.
New footage shows Assad regime executing dozens of civilians in Syria
— ANADOLU AGENCY (@anadoluagency) April 28, 2022
At least 41 civilians were executed by Bashar al-Assad regime forces in 2013 in Tadamon, near Damascus, according to an investigation by The Guardian. https://t.co/PyzVGb9bat pic.twitter.com/UjsGYvRefv
Taking a cue from this, further search yielded the Guardian and New Lines Magazine articles, which have reported the news initially. As per these reports, the video shows Syrian military men killing civilians at the time of civil war in 2013. Further, the report identified the armed man in the viral video as Amjad Youssef.
According to the reports, the video was leaked to researchers Annsar Shahhoud and Uğur Umit Ungor in 2019 and was reported in 2022 after authenticating it.
Thus, these reports affirm that the viral visuals are old and not related to recent earthquakes of Turkey.
Fact: During the 2013 Syrian civil war, these images depict the Syrian military killing civilians. In 2022, the video was discovered, and several news organizations reported on it. Contractors, architects, and engineers are being scrutinized for their subpar work following the recent earthquake in Turkey, which caused thousands of buildings to collapse. However, there are no reports of these contractors being executed in large numbers. Therefore, the assertion made in the post is WRONG.
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