Activist tweets fake 2018 article claiming Swiss athlete canned India trip over rape fears

The clipping shared by activist Yogita Bhayana is from 2018, after which the squash player's parents had clarified she had pulled out for personal reasons.

Activists of various organisations (SFI, DYFI & AIDWA) hold a candlelight vigil during a protest over the death of Hathras gang-rape victim, in Vijayawada, Wednesday, 30 September 2020 | PTI

New Delhi: Rumours that a Swiss squash player cancelled her trip to India out of concerns about women’s safety went viral after an anti-rape activist tweeted a newspaper clipping of the same.

Yogita Bhayana, founder of People Against Rape in India (PARI), Friday tweeted a newspaper clipping according to which teen squash player Ambre Allinckx refused to visit India for the WSF-World Junior Squash Championship because of her parents’ concerns about rising cases of sexual assault. Bhayana added the words “Thanks for making us Global Power @narendramodi”.

Her tweet, which comes at a time when India is in shock over the alleged gangrape and murder of a Dalit woman in Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras, got more than 3,000 retweets and 10.4 likes on Twitter until Saturday morning.

Thanks for making us Global power ? @narendramodi pic.twitter.com/SsGPFzGR68

— Yogita Bhayana (@yogitabhayana) October 9, 2020

 

Fact check

However, it turns out that the newspaper clipping shared by the activist is from 2018, when Allinckx’s parents had anyway rubbished this claim and clarified that their daughter pulled out of the tournament in Chennai for personal reasons.

“We, as parents, never were concerned about safety in India. This is a lie or a journalistic invention. We wanted to have summer holidays as a family and due to the father (Igor) work, this has to take place in July. So nothing in our decision was about safety,” the Swiss player’s parents, Valerie and Igor, had clarified in a message to squashsite.co.uk, a leading squash web portal.

The link to the original article by the Hindi paper is no longer traceable.

In collaboration with SM Hoaxslayer