Photo shows former Pakistan PM's supporters rallying in April 2022, not March 2023

  • This article is more than one year old.
  • Published on April 12, 2023 at 08:18
  • 3 min read
  • By AFP Pakistan

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A photo of a large night-time rally in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore has been shared in multiple Facebook posts and tweets that falsely claim it shows a crowd gathered to hear former prime minister Imran Khan speak at an assembly held on March 25, 2023. While the photo shows a crowd of Khan's supporters at the venue, it actually shows a rally that took place nearly a year earlier in April 2022.

"Minar e Pakistan Right Now #ImranKhan #PTI", reads the caption of a photo shared on Twitter here in the early hours of March 26, 2023.

The photo appears to show a bird's-eye view of a large crowd gathered near the Minar-e-Pakistan monument in Lahore.

It was tweeted hours after the start of a large rally that, according to local media, saw Khan repeating his calls for the government to hold fresh elections.

The country has been in political turmoil since Khan was ousted as prime minister in April 2022 through a no-confidence vote and replaced by a coalition he has harried with parliamentary manoeuvres and rallies calling for snap elections.

In January, Khan dissolved the provincial assemblies in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and eastern Punjab, where his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party held majorities -- a move designed to pile more pressure on his successor, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

The face-off between Khan and the government reached boiling point earlier in March when police attempted to arrest him over a corruption case, leading to 48 hours of clashes with supporters in Lahore.

Screenshot of the false post, captured on April 8, 2023

The same photo was shared alongside similar claims elsewhere on Twitter here, here and here; and on Facebook here, here and here.

Comments on the posts indicate some users believed it showed the March 25 rally.

"The followers of Imran Khan will never let any harm come to him," wrote one user.

Another said: "Workers have reached the rally by crossing all hurdles."

However, the photo in fact shows a rally of Khan's supporters from 2022 at the same location.

April 2022 rally

A reverse image search of the photo on Google found the same photo posted on the ProPakistani blog, which identified it as a scene from the rally on April 21, 2022.

The blog is titled, "PTI Power Show In Lahore: Glimpses From Imran Khan's Jalsa [Pictures]".

Below is a screenshot comparison between the photo used in the false post (left) and the photo as it appears in the ProPakistani blog (right):

Screenshot comparison between the photo used in the false post (left) and the photo as it appears in the ProPakistani blog (right)

A reverse image search on TinEye found the same photo was used as part of a collage on the website of the Daily Jang newspaper here on April 22, 2022, in an article about the PTI rally and Pakistani celebrities who were present.

A similar photo was shared by a PTI Facebook page here on April 23, 2022, while a similar bird's eye view of the crowd was shared in a video on the PTI's official Twitter account here.

Other Pakistani outlets including ARY News and the Express Tribune newspaper also reported on the rally.

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