A video claiming to show a hate attack on Chinese Americans in California is widely circulated in China and other Asian countries. However, it was verified that the video was actually a gang riot that occurred in an Ecuadorian prison in February this year.
Beginning on April 26, the video started circulating on multiple social media platforms in China, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia, such as WeChat, Line, and Facebook. The explanatory text accompanying the violent and bloody footage, written in Chinese, claimed that it was a racist attack targeting Chinese Americans in California.
There are actually two versions of explanatory text, according to Taiwanese media MyGoPen, an online media dedicated to fight against disinformation.
One version said, “What is going on in the United States!? The blacks and whites in California beat a Chinese to death for no reason! This is terrible! Yet our government still clings to the United States?”
The other version said, “In the United States, which is a total mess now, blacks and whites in California recently beat a Chinese man to death on the street for no reason, and stripped off his pants to humiliate him.”
However, an investigation report released by the Taiwan FactCheck Center on May 3 disclosed that the content of the video showed a prison riot in Ecuador in February this year, and had nothing to do with Chinese or Asians in the United States.
The language in the video was Spanish, mostly foul words, and the shooting location appeared to be within a high fenced wall, the report said.
Through further research, the Taiwan FactCheck Center found the original source of the video: a video platform called Shockorge, which described the footage as “a prison riot in Ecuador in February 2021.” The center then checked this by sending inquiries to the National Police of Ecuador and related organizations, who verified that the video content was indeed a gang riot taking place in an Ecuadorian prison on Feb. 25.
Since the outbreak of the Chinese Communist Party virus, also known as the novel coronavirus, there have been several attacks against Asians in the United States.
On March 16, a series of shootings occurred at three massage parlors in the metropolitan area of Atlanta, Georgia. Eight people were killed, six of whom were Asian women.
However, in an interview with The Epoch Times in early April, Zheng Cunzhu, a Chinese democracy activist in Los Angeles, said that the so-called discrimination incidents against Asians are rare occurrences. In fact, it is not white people or racists who attack Asians, but other ethnic groups. The mainstream media seems to have deliberately ignored these details.
Zheng said that in the aspects of rules and laws, racial discrimination has been eliminated in the United States. So there is no systemic discrimination in this country. However, the Chinese Communist Party-controlled media continue to hype up these rare incidents, trying to create an impression that “although the United States is a democratic country, there are still chaotic situations everywhere.”
