Pages and accounts on social media circulated a report claiming that "General Security" in the city of Azaz in the northern Aleppo countryside was preventing funerals for victims of the fuel price protests and forcing them to be buried in silence, away from media coverage, after they were killed by General Security gunfire.
The fact-checking team verified the circulating report by cross-checking information and contacting local sources, and found the account to be built on untrue information. The team had previously verified a claim that 11 people were killed by General Security gunfire in the city of Azaz during the protests, and found no reliable source or official statement establishing deaths or injuries in the numbers and names given in the circulating posts.
The team also contacted a number of activists in the city of Azaz, who likewise denied the circulating information about 11 people being killed, confirming that what the claim stated was untrue.
Why is this claim misleading?
Fabricated content: Promoting allegations about funerals being blocked and burials forced into silence, on the basis of an untrue account of protesters killed in Azaz, is classified as misleading.
