Video doesn't show American woman heckled for 'not wearing hijab' in Bangladesh

What's the claim?

Social media users have circulated a 20-second video showing a woman on a cycle-rickshaw being harassed by a group of young boys, claiming it depicts an American woman in Bangladesh targeted for not wearing a hijab or burqa. 

In the viral video, the woman holds what appears to be a cake in one hand while attempting to call someone on her phone as the boys heckle her. The video abruptly ends after she exits the rickshaw and walks away, continuing to be heckled. Archived versions of posts featuring the video can be found here, here, here, here, and here.

However, we found that the woman in the video is Bangladeshi actor Mishti Subas. She was harassed after publicly cutting a cake to celebrate former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's birthday in Dhaka.

What we found

A reverse image search using keyframes from the viral video led us to a report published by Lokmat Times (archived here). According to this report, the woman in the video is Mishti Subas, a supporter of Hasina who faced harassment after publicly celebrating the politician's birthday in Dhaka.

We found additional video clips of the same incident, captured from different angles but featuring the same woman and the group of boys, posted by users on Facebook (archived here) and YouTube (archived here), detailing the event in Bangla.

A Google keyword search in Bangla yielded several news reports, including a Hindi report by ABP Live and Bangla reports by the Daily Inqilab and The Report. These reports included similar screenshots from the viral video and identified the woman as Subas.

We also located video reports from Bangladeshi news organizations Protidiner Bangladesh, SATV, and Channel Satkahon (archived here, here, and here). In these reports, the actor is seen holding a cake and announcing her intention to celebrate Hasina's birthday. However, the crowd begins to heckle and harass her, eventually ruining the cake. Subas condemns the incident while attempting to fend off the hecklers, as shown in the videos.

According to these reports, the incident in the viral video occurred on September 29, 2024, at Dhaka University's Teacher-Student Centre (TSC) when Subas visited to celebrate Hasina's birthday. The reports quote her stating that she had privately celebrated Hasina's birthday on the actual date, September 28, 2024, but this public celebration was a protest against a disrespectful ceremony organized by students at TSC on Hasina's birthday (archived here).

The verdict

The viral video does not depict an American woman being harassed for not wearing a burqa in Bangladesh. The woman seen in the video is Bangladeshi actor Mishti Subas, who was heckled after attempting to publicly celebrate former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's birthday on September 29, 2024.