Thailand assault video falsely shared as 'Chinese communist beating Indonesian'

This article is more than one year old.
Published on September 30, 2022 at 13:00
Updated on September 30, 2022 at 13:02
3 min read
By AFP Indonesia, AFP Hong Kong, AFP Thailand

Graphic footage of an attacker setting upon a man in a prolonged assault is circulating in posts that claim it shows a Chinese man beating an Indonesian national. The posts made a flurry of anti-Chinese insults and blamed "cruel communists" for the attack. However, the claim is false. The video actually shows a Thai man who was attacked in January 2020 by his employer, a loan shark, in a dispute over money.

Warning: graphic footage

"Sadistic footage leaked to the public. A Chinese communist assaulted a native Indonesian. The reason is still under investigation," reads a Facebook post published on September 20, 2022.

"Are we going to keep ignoring such cruelty from the Chinese communists?"

The footage, which lasts over a minute, shows an attacker repeatedly kicking, hitting and dragging a man around on the floor, as a group of men look on.

The post, which is written in Indonesian and Javanese, is littered with anti-Chinese remarks and makes references to "our people" becoming "their subordinates".

Screenshot of the misleading post, taken on September 29, 2022

The video was shared in a string of similar Facebook posts, including here, here and here, and attracted more than 92,000 views in a tweet which claimed the attack happened on Indonesia's Sulawesi island, a hotspot for Chinese-controlled nickel smelters.

China's influence is a sensitive topic in Indonesia, where politicians have warned that pro-China policies are saddling the mineral-rich archipelago with bad debt as it is sold off piecemeal to foreign interests.

Tensions soared during the pandemic, when reports of Chinese workers arriving at Jakarta airport in 2021, at a time when domestic restrictions barred Indonesians from travelling to visit family for Eid sparked outrage.

However, the video does not show a Chinese man beating an Indonesian.

'Loan shark gang'

A reverse image search and keyword searches on Google found parts of the clip in a news report about an attack in Thailand.

"Man admits to involvement in loan shark gang, assaulted and bedridden for 3 days after he was unable to collect money from a client," reads the title of the report, posted on YouTube by Thailand's Channel 3 television station on December 3, 2020.

The victim was attacked in January 2020 in the central Thai province of Nonthaburi following a dispute with his boss about money, Channel 3 reported.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in the misleading post (left) and the clip in Channel 3's report (right):

Screenshot comparison of the video in the misleading post (left) and the clip in Channel 3's report (right)

An AFP journalist in Bangkok watched the footage of the attack -- which was reported by various Thai news outlets here and here -- and confirmed that the people were speaking Thai.

Channel 3's report conceals the man's identity, adding that he did not wish to press charges as he feared for his safety.

Police launched an investigation when the footage circulated online months after the attack, and proceeded to press charges, a police spokesman told AFP.

Police Colonel Witthaya Bowonsikharin, who led the investigation into the assault, said that the victim was a Thai national and that officers had made charges in the case.

"The man who was physically assaulted collected loan money from a client but didn't give it back to the company, so the employer hit him," Witthaya said on September 9, 2022.

The video previously circulated in Chinese-language posts falsely claiming the victim was a Chinese man who fell prey to a jobs scam in Myanmar.

AFP has previously debunked anti-Chinese misinformation shared in Indonesia, including here, here, here and here.

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