Video shows brawl in Turkish parliament, not 'Indonesian doctor getting kicked off TV'

"There’s an easy and effective method… The famous Dr Terawan was attacked and kicked out of a studio in a live broadcast because he revealed a secret," reads the Indonesian-language caption of a nine-second video shared on Facebook here on August 21, 2023.

A banner above the video, which has been viewed more than 566,000 times, says, "Kompas.com" -- the website of an Indonesian media outlet.

Text below the video reads: "A scandal inside a studio! Dr Teravan Agus Putranto reveals a secret to permanently cure hypertension. After that he was attacked and brought outside the studio."

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Screenshot of the misleading post, taken on September 4, 2023

Dr Terawan Agus Putranto -- who served as Indonesia's health minister for 14 months before he was replaced during the Covid-19 pandemic in December 2020 -- is considered a "controversial figure", according to the Jakarta Globe newspaper (archived link).

The newspaper reported that the military radiologist said in February 2020 that Indonesia had zero Covid-19 cases due to God's blessing and called a scientific study that questioned government data "an insult" to the country.

His membership of a national medication association was also terminated in March 2022 for "serious ethical misconduct".

The same video was also shared elsewhere on Facebook here, here and here, racking up more than 799,000 views in total.

But the video does not show the former health minister being removed from a TV studio for revealing a "secret" hypertension cure.

Turkish parliament mayhem

A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the video that were generated using the digital verification tool InVID-WeVerify, led to a video uploaded by European TV network Euronews on YouTube here on May 2, 2016 (archived link).

The video is titled, "Turkey parliament mayhem".

Its description reads: "Scuffles break out between members of Turkey's ruling AK Party and pro-Kurdish opposition party during a discussion on whether to remove politicians' immunity."

The video being falsely shared online corresponds to the portion beginning at the Euronews' video's 19-second mark, and a sliver of the Euronews watermark can be seen in its top-right corner.

Below is a screenshot comparison between the video used in the false post (left) and the Euronews video (right):

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Screenshot comparison between the video used in the false post (left) and the Euronews video (right)

AFP reported that the fighting erupted during a meeting of parliament's constitutional committee that was due to discuss a government-backed proposal to strip MPs of their parliamentary immunity.

It came as the government stepped up efforts to have pro-Kurdish lawmakers prosecuted over their alleged links with militants amid mounting tension in the Kurdish-majority southeast.

Reports said the head of the opposition faction in parliament, Idris Baluken, dislocated his shoulder in the fighting.

Ana Syatiri, the managing editor of Kompas.com, of which banner appears above the falsely shared video, told AFP that the news outlet "has never produced any video" like the one seen in the false posts.

"The Kompas.com banner in the video is taken and put by an irresponsible party, so as to make the video look like one that is produced by Kompas.com," Ana said on August 30, 2023.

Both the American Heart Association and the American Medical Association say there is no cure for hypertension, but prescribed medication and making lifestyle changes can lower blood pressure and reduce the risk of heart disease (archived links here and here).