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Do photos on social media show Christians who refused to deny their faith being suffocated in Afghanistan?

By Sarah Thompson
NO

Photos of people encased in bag-like coverings are video stills taken at a protest performance 8,800 miles from Afghanistan in Medellín, Colombia, on May 26, 2021. The performance was intended to be a symbolic tribute to people who had recently been killed during a national strike in Colombia.

Video from the protest shows demonstrators alive and moving while encased in the bags. A caption, translated from Spanish, said the performance was called "Bundled" and it was, "A tribute to the people who have turned up dead in the last days, drowned, in pieces and in bags."

A Colombian website announced the protest in advance, saying (translated from Spanish), "In the El Poblado park there are plans to carry out different symbolic and cultural activities, such as a performance of people who will put themselves in bags ..."

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR
Lead Stories is a fact checking and debunking website at the intersection of big data and journalism that launched in 2015. It scouts for trending stories, images, videos and posts that contain false information in order to fact check them as quickly as possible. It actively monitors the fake-news ecosystem and doesn’t wait for reader tips or reports before getting started on a story.
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