Viral notification of public holiday on September 6 for Defence Day

Rating Justification

The iVerify Pakistan team has reviewed this content and determined that it is false.

To reach this conclusion, the iVerify Pakistan team contacted ARY News and investigated the alleged notification.

A notification making the rounds on social media on September 4, 2024, allegedly showed an announcement from the government of a public holiday on September 6 for Defence Day. However, the notification was fake.

HOW IT STARTED

A picture circulating on social messaging platform WhatsApp on September 4, 2024, showed a graphic of ARY News running the news and a notification of a public holiday announced on September 6 for Defence Day.

The same graphic was posted by a YouTube account on September 3 portraying itself as a news channel while posting content from different media outlets and editing its logo on the layout of the various news channels.

METHODOLOGY

A fact check was initiated to determine the veracity of the claim due to its high circulation on WhatsApp as it was forwarded many times and its relation to the public interest concerning any holiday or not.

Investigating the graphic itself showed issues with the alleged notification it contained. The text of the notification was not completely legible but from the bits that could be seen, it mentioned June 4-7 and Wednesday, Thursday and Friday whereas Defence Day will fall on September 6, Friday.

Furthermore, the news ticker in the graphic attributed the notification to the Cabinet Division while the text of the document itself mentioned the Ministry of Interior.

Reaching out to ARY News for further comment on whether it actually aired the alleged news or not yielded a response from Fayyaz Hyder Mangi, the head of assignment at ARY News, who said: “It’s fake”, referring to the news graphic.

Dawn.com correspondent Nadir Guramani also reached out to the law ministry for corroboration and an official on condition of anonymity said the alleged notification and announcement were fake.

The Ministry of Information and state-run news outlet APP also denounced the alleged notification as being fake with the latter saying: “The news about a public holiday on September 6 Defence Day is based on lies and no notification has been issued in this regard.”

FACT-CHECK STATUS: FALSE

The claim regarding a notification announcing a public holiday on September 6 for Defence Day is false.

ARY News confirmed it aired no such news and the alleged notification is also fake.

Evidence and References

September 4, 2024, information ministry X post:
https://perma.cc/TE4X-FN4X

September 4, 2024, APP X post:
https://perma.cc/VX36-VLF8