Old protest photo falsely portrayed as showing 'execution of Filipino worker in Saudi Arabia'

Philippine officials announced that a Filipino worker was executed in Saudi Arabia in October 2024 but a circulating video does not show the execution as multiple social media posts claimed. The video, which racked up hundreds of thousands of views, featured an old picture of a protest in Bangladesh against capital punishment in the Middle Eastern kingdom.

The video -- showing a still image of a person whose face has been covered in black cloth -- has been shared on Facebook on October 9, 2024.

"Filipino OFW in Saudi Arabia executed on 10/05/2024," read its Tagalog-language caption using the acronym for "overseas Filipino workers".

Millions of the archipelago's nationals work abroad -- with large numbers concentrated in the Middle East -- due to limited job opportunities at home.

The post was shared after Philippine officials said Saudi Arabia executed a Filipino worker despite Manila's appeals (archived link).

The name of the executed Filipino and details about the crime were not disclosed following the family's request for privacy.

The official Saudi Press Agency reported that the execution took place on October 5 and that the worker had been convicted of killing a Saudi national.

Comments on the posts suggest that some users were misled.

"It's so painful to see our fellow Filipino get executed rip," one wrote.

"As per the family request (sic), please delete the video," another said.

The video has also been viewed more than 270,000 times alongside similar false claims on Facebook and TikTok.

'Mock execution scene'

A reverse search on Google, however, found the photo featured in the clip is a cropped version of a wider-angle picture published by the European Pressphoto Agency (EPA) on October 15, 2011 (archived link).

The original picture -- credited to photographer Abir Abdullah -- appears to show a person about to wield a sword at the one seen in the photo shared in the false posts.

"Young Bangladeshi members of an organization called Magic Movement stage a mock execution scene in protest of the beheading of eight Bangladeshi workers in Saudi Arabia, in front of the National Museum in Dhaka, Bangladesh 15 October 2011," the caption to the EPA picture read.

"Despite Bangladesh's repeated pleas for clemency, Saudi Arabia executed eight Bangladeshi workers in public in the Saudi capital on 07 October 2011 for their involvement in a robbery and subsequent murder of an Egyptian security guard in Riyadh in 2007."

Below is a screenshot comparison of the photo in the false posts (left) and the EPA picture (right):

Reuters news agency also published a similar picture of the 2011 protest in Bangladesh (archived link).

Saudi Arabia executed over 198 individuals in 2024, the highest number recorded in the country since 1990, according to Amnesty International (archived link).