On August 24, the Chinese Ambassador to France’s official Twitter account tried to pass off the bridal wear from Karachi as the traditional dress of Uyghurs. They published a photograph from a fashion show in Pakistan with hashtags #costume #Xinjing asserting it was a traditional dress of Uyghur Muslims.
However, the account was caught red-handed after netizens pointed out that it was a photograph from a fashion show that took place in Karachi, Pakistan. The dress shown in the picture is a wedding dress that is famous in both India and Pakistan.
Twitter user Mugdha Deshmukh shared a screenshot of a Tweet by China-state affiliated media XH Japanese from August 23 that has the same photograph. The tweet read, “A bridal festival fashion show was held in Karachi, a port city in southern Pakistan. Take a peek at the eye-pleasing show. Taken on August 18 (translated from Japanese using Google Translate services).”
— Mugdha Deshmukh 🇮🇳 (@ThatGirlIn30s) August 24, 2022
On reverse-searching the image, OpIndia found two links that had the same photograph. News.cn published a report on August 18 with photographs from the bridal fashion show that took place in Karachi. The photograph has the title “A model presents a creation during a bridal festival fashion show in southern Pakistani port city of Karachi on August 18, 2022.” Notably, it is also a Chinese media house that published the photograph.
We also found a video of the show that was published by ApniISP.com on YouTube. The model in the photograph can be seen at the 4:30 timestamp in the video.
As per pipanews.com, the fashion show displayed a wide variety of wedding dresses, including lehengas, shararas, and more. Pakistani actresses Reema Khan, Shaughta Ejaz, Rebecca Khan, Shaista Lodhi, Neelam Munir, Nadia Hussain, Sarwat Geelani, Saba Faisal, and other models participated in the show.
Uyghur Muslims in China
In the Xinjiang province of China, nearly 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities have been reportedly detained in a network of detention centres since 2017. By stating that the camps are vocational training schools, Beijing has refuted reports that it has tortured Muslims in Xinjiang. The Communist Party of China’s (CPC) objective is to integrate Uyghurs into the dominant Han Chinese ethnicity by stripping them of their religious and ethnic identities. While Uyghur Muslims face re-education camps, forced labour, and digital surveillance, including their children being indoctrinated in orphanages.
The CPC restricts any news revealing the horrors committed against the Uyghurs in the detention centres in order to counteract scathing foreign findings. Several foreign journalists covering the plight of the Uyghurs have been expelled from China, while academics, activists, and survivors who try to expose China’s deceit have been mocked and harassed. Those who speak out against China’s illegal detention of Uyghurs are either intimidated or executed.
