Brecht Castel Profile picture
Jul 7, 2022 β€’ 36 tweets β€’ 26 min read β€’ Read on X
250K views for a terrifying video from Nukus, #Karakalpakstan.

A street "covered in the blood of protesters" or "red paint"?

Investigation by @Lotte_Lambrecht and me. πŸ§΅πŸ‘‡1/...

#OSINT πŸ”Ž
#Verification πŸŽ₯
#GeoLocation 🌍
#HowToOSINT 🧐 Image
@Lotte_Lambrecht Some context first.

Karakalpakstan is a semi-autonomous region in Uzbekistan, Central Asia.

Authorities in Uzbekistan have said that 18 people were killed during last week’s unrest after plans to strip Karakalpakstan of its autonomy. 2/...

eurasianet.org/uzbekistan-at-…
@Lotte_Lambrecht Thousands took to the streets in the biggest protest in Uzbekistan in recent years. President Mirzijoev declared a state of emergency.

Blood was certainly shed in Karakalpakstans capital, Nukus.

Official figuers confirm, we've seen a lot of gruesome videos of victims. 3/... Image
@Lotte_Lambrecht Uzbek media say it is not blood we see in the viral video, but coloured water, which was used to mark demonstrators.

That is also what Uzbek MP Bobur Bekmurodov claims in a tweet. πŸ‘‡ 4/... Image
@Lotte_Lambrecht To prove this πŸ‘†, they use a photo from #Belarus, taken in October 2020, of a water cannon spraying demonstrators with an orange liquid. 5/...

Source: people.onliner.by/2020/10/04/fot…
@Lotte_Lambrecht The viral video is recent and was shot on a central boulevard in #Nukus.

We know this by comparing visual elements in the video (left) with Yandex's Streetview (right). #Geolocation βœ…

We found no indications of image manipulation. 6/... Image
@Lotte_Lambrecht To contextualise this video, we researched and verified eleven videos of the protest, all made on 1 or 2 July. πŸ”Ž

You can find them here on an interactive map: πŸ—ΊοΈπŸ“

maphub.net/brechtcastel/p… 7/...
@Lotte_Lambrecht In a chaotic video shot 150 metres from the viral video, we see a vehicle used by the Uzbek riot police.

We read 'Jino' on a logo and also 'JIN . motors' πŸŸ₯. 8/... Image
@Lotte_Lambrecht We google these words.

This leads us to a South Korean πŸ‡°πŸ‡· company, Jino Motors, which produces water cannons. 9/... Image
@Lotte_Lambrecht The Titan water cannon is one of the vehicles they produce.

Visual elements from Nukus' video 🟨🟦πŸŸ₯ match a photo on a website selling the vehicle.

So we know that it is indeed a Titan that was used during the protests in #Karakalpakstan. 10/... Image
@Lotte_Lambrecht We read that the vehicle is suitable as a water cannon, but can also fire foam, tear gas and paint πŸŸ₯.

It is therefore theoretically possible that a coloured liquid was sprayed on the demonstrators. 11/... Image
@Lotte_Lambrecht In the viral video, the camera briefly swings left and right.

Thus we can clearly see that there are also dry spots on that street.

➑️It is plausible that the wet spot was caused by a water cannon. 12/... Image
@Lotte_Lambrecht Moreover, the water cannon was visibly deployed nearby (left).

We also find other videos in which we see water cannons spraying 🟦.

However, here we do not see red dye mixed with water. 13/... Image
@Lotte_Lambrecht In another video on Instagram, we see a group of men throwing stones at the riot police.

In this video we also see red puddles on the street.

This video (right) appears to be shot across the street from the viral video (left) and shows the exact same spot: 🟦πŸŸ₯🟨. 14/... Image
@Lotte_Lambrecht In the Instagram video, we see no bleeding people or wounded bodies lying on the street that could explain the red colour. ❌

The puddles are there, but there is nothing to suggest that a massacre just took place : people are relatively calm, except for some stone-throwers. 15/ Image
@Lotte_Lambrecht From second 5, the Instagram video shows a coloured mist in the background 🟧, from which people are running away.

The haze has a reddish-orange glow, which could indicate coloured water. 16/... Image
@Lotte_Lambrecht When the haze lifts, we can see that there is a water cannon on the left side of the street.

It is therefore quite possible that the orange haze is coming from that cannon. 17/... Image
@Lotte_Lambrecht This spot is not the only one where we see red puddles in Nukus.

In a video shot 1 km away, we also see large pools of red liquid on the street (left).

A few metres further on (right), we see someone with a head wound. 18/... Image
@Lotte_Lambrecht However, the blood loss πŸ‘† does not seem to be in proportion to the large red puddles.

Here too, water cannons were active. 19/...
@Lotte_Lambrecht CONCLUSION: Based on the images examined and currently available, it is possible that red fluid was used by Uzbek riot police.

Visual evidence of large amounts of blood in the places where we see red pools was not found. 20/...
@Lotte_Lambrecht MORE IMPORTANTLY: We do #OSINT far from Nukus. Journalists should be able to work in this region.

Local journalists have been detained. Internet was cut off in Nukus for some time.

This doesn't help the truth getting out. ⚠️

@Lotte_Lambrecht What have we learned? πŸ‘©β€πŸ«

1) #OSINT depends on the sources you find. Without the Instagram video, this would have been harder. πŸ“±
2) Putting footage on a map is important to understand what happened. πŸ—ΊοΈ
3) #OSINT only gives one part of the puzzle. Local journalism is needed! πŸ“°
@Lotte_Lambrecht You can read our full article with all sources used here (@Knack) for FREE. πŸ‘‡23/...

knack.be/factcheck/fact…
@Lotte_Lambrecht @Knack Every footage we could geolocate is on this map (free to use for everyone).

For people interested I continue this thread with all #geolocations so far. πŸ‘‡πŸ‘‡πŸ‘‡

You want to help? Find other footage from Nukus, geolocate and tag me. I'll add to the MAP.

maphub.net/brechtcastel/p…
@Lotte_Lambrecht @Knack Video 2: crowd

42.462159, 59.605203

Source: t.me/anthabar/2328 Image
@Lotte_Lambrecht @Knack Video 3: crowd at sunset

42.462021, 59.605221

Source: Image
@Lotte_Lambrecht @Knack Video 4: water cannon

42.465509, 59.604138

t.me/basekz/5238 Image
@Lotte_Lambrecht @Knack Video 5: water cannon in crowd

42.46238, 59.60509

Source: t.me/anthabar/2336?… Image
@Lotte_Lambrecht @Knack Video 6: riot police

42.474373, 59.60078

Source: t.me/basekz/5256 Image
@Lotte_Lambrecht @Knack Video 7: mass runs away

42.476056, 59.601044

Source: t.me/basekz/5242 Image
@Lotte_Lambrecht @Knack Video 9: fire

42.475455, 59.601363

Source: instagram.com/p/CfhBEExlEIS/ Image
@Lotte_Lambrecht @Knack Video 10: riots

42.466453, 59.603860

Source: instagram.com/p/Cfi3QDmgm7C/ Image
@Lotte_Lambrecht @Knack Video 11: victim (graphic)

42.475195, 59.601203

Source: t.me/basekz/5229 Image
@Lotte_Lambrecht @Knack IMPORTANT UPDATE: @joannalillis, who is working as a journalist in Nukus, just got back to me:

"Nukus city police chief told me it was dye, and a witness in the bazaar, who took part in the protest, said the same." Our #OSINT investigation got confirmed.βœ…

β€’ β€’ β€’

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
γ€€

Keep Current with Brecht Castel

Brecht Castel Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @brechtcastel

May 4, 2023
You come across a video in a language you don't understand. Annoying. 😠

Wouldn't it be great if you could watch that video with English subtitles? 😍

You can! With a little help from AI!
#OSINT #tutorial πŸ‘‡1/...

(got the idea from @matt0177 πŸ™) Image
@matt0177 First thing you have to do is install Whisper (this is software from #OpenAI, same guys from #ChatGPT).

It's FREE, but not so easy to install. I used this tutorial:

All info on Whisper here: github.com/openai/whisper 2/...
@matt0177 If you installed Whisper correctly, you download the video on your PC and go to the folder where the video is.

Now you type "cmd", to open command-line-interface. 3/... Image
Read 11 tweets
Jan 30, 2023
3.3M views for this video by @EuromaidanPress:

"American πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ infantry fighting vehicles M2 Bradley are spotted in Poland πŸ‡΅πŸ‡± [...] toward the Ukrainian border πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡¦. "

TRUE βœ… or FALSE ❌? Investigate! πŸ§΅πŸ‘‡ 1/...

#OSINT πŸ”Ž
#Verification πŸŽ₯
#GeoLocation 🌍
#HowToOSINT 🧐
@EuromaidanPress The exact location of the video is difficult to find due to the limited visual elements in the background. 😒

But it's admittedly plausible that the video was shot in Poland. How do we know this? πŸ‘‡2/...
@EuromaidanPress On the locomotive we read PKP Cargo 🟨, which is the largest rail freight carrier in Poland πŸ‡΅πŸ‡±.

We find a picture of a PKP-locomotive with the same serial number ST44-1232 πŸŸ₯.

The road sign in the video 🟩 corresponds to the Polish W9 sign for train signals. 3/...
Read 18 tweets
Nov 24, 2022
"Ukrainians πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡¦ in the World Cup of Qatar πŸ‡ΆπŸ‡¦ arrested for spreading Nazi symbols."

This "report from Al Jazeera" gets 391K views on Telegram. 😲

Fake or real? Let's investigate!πŸ§΅πŸ‘‡1/...

#OSINTπŸ”Ž
#Verification πŸ“½οΈ
#GeoLocation 🌍
#HowToOSINT 🧐
#WorldcupQatar2022 ⚽️ Image
"Three drunken Ukrainian supporters were arrested in Qatar. The reason? They made a Nazi salute and vandalised posters at the Al Bayt stadium by drawing a Hitler moustache on the World Cup mascot La'eeb. When arrested, they showed no resistance."

Source: @AlJazeera Really? πŸ€”2/ Image
@AlJazeera The video features Al Jazeera's official logo πŸ‘†, has high quality and looks professionally made.

Any video on aljazeera.com (right) has an almost identical layout to the video circulating on social media (left). 3/... Image
Read 22 tweets
Oct 18, 2022
"Happy Birthday for Vladimir Putin from Belgium πŸ‡§πŸ‡ͺ" from men in army uniform with guns. πŸ€”

Let's investigate this deleted TikTok-video. πŸ§΅πŸ‘‡1/...

#OSINTπŸ”Ž
#Verification πŸ“½οΈ
#GeoLocation 🌍
#HowToOSINT 🧐
This is the video. πŸ“½οΈπŸ‘€ 2/...

Is this a real video shot in Belgium❓

The video was previously uploaded on the social networking site TikTok on the account '@batyab.e.a.r', we can tell by the caption with the TikTok logo 🟨. 3/...
Read 23 tweets
Sep 21, 2022
11.8M views for a TikTok of "a mosquito 🦟 with a number on its back". 😲

Is Bill Gates involved? (Spoiler: no.) Investigate! πŸ§΅πŸ‘‡1/...

#OSINTπŸ”Ž
#Verification πŸŽ₯
#HowToOSINT 🧐

#BillGates #TikTok #FactCheck #Weird
The Russian caption (albeit with typo) on this viral video reads: 'Guys who know where the numbers on mosquitoes come from (?)'.

Good question! Let's start with some basic Google... 2/...
tiktok.com/@dyunh519yip1/…
To find out the origin of the images, we google part of the Russian inscription.

So we come to an article on the Kazakh news site Ekspress.

That article features the same video and situates it in Kazakhstan. πŸ‡°πŸ‡Ώ3/...
Read 19 tweets
Sep 9, 2022
On Facebook and Twitter hundreds of thousands saw a video of "Queen Elizabeth feeding vulnerable kids...😭😭😭"

Is this #QueenElizabeth "feeding humans as if they are animals"?

Let's find out! πŸ‘‡πŸ§΅1/...

#OSINTπŸ”Ž
#Verification πŸ“½οΈ
#HowToOSINT 🧐
We take a screenshot of the video and load it into the Russian search engine Yandex. #ReverseImageSearch

This brings us to a site with film recommendations. πŸŸ₯2/...
The French title of that page πŸ‘‡ reads 'Annamite children collect sapΓ¨ques for the pagoda of the ladies'.

SapΓ¨que is an ancient Chinese coinage. πŸͺ™

Annamite refers to a mountain range ⛰️ on the border of Vietnam πŸ‡»πŸ‡³ and the neighbouring countries of Laos πŸ‡±πŸ‡¦ and Cambodia πŸ‡°πŸ‡­. 3/
Read 13 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(