CLAIM
As the world is making attempts to fight the novel coronavirus, an article published by AB-TC (aka City News) claims that China has sought the approval of the Supreme People's Court to “kill over 20,000 coronavirus patients to avoid further spread of the virus”.
A part of the text reads, “The State tells the court that China is on the verge of losing its health workers to coronavirus as at least 20 health workers contract the virus daily. The State argues that coronavirus patients admitted at hospitals only have their deaths delayed and infect many others while receiving care at the hospital.”
The article has been widely shared on Twitter.
The Quint received a query on the claim made in the article on its WhatsApp Helpline.
WHAT’S THE TRUTH?
Firstly, the City News website is the only one to claim that the highest level of Court in China is expected to give its approval on “the mass killing of coronavirus patients in China for controlling the spread of the deadly virus”.
This article speaks about a conversation between “the state” and “the court” but it nowhere supplements the information provided with evidence.
We also looked into the history of the website and found that in multiple instances the portal has been called out for spreading disinformation.
For instance, PesaCheck, an East Africa’s fact-checking initiative, has found AB-TC’s article on ‘JKUAT Medical Doctor Trainees Produce Vaccine For Coronavirus; Six Chinese Recovered After Administration’ dubious.
Another fact-check by AFP debunked AB-TC’s article on ‘BREAKING NEWS: Mass shooting in Philadelphia thwarted by Philly PD’.
We did a keyword search, ‘AB-TC City news fake hoax’ and found that Lead Stories, a US based fact-checking organisation, had listed out several stories published by AB-TC that turned out be a hoax.
However, there is no disclaimer on the website that mentions whether their content is a work of fiction or if it’s a satirical website.
Also, Singapore Government’s fact-check arm issued a clarification on 30 January regarding fake content that was published on the hoax website with the headline: ‘BREAKING NEWS: Singapore records six more coronavirus case, total of 16 now.”
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