Manipulated video of Sri Lankan president 'watching opposition party's rally' spreads online

Published on August 8, 2024 at 05:12
4 min read
By Harshana SILVA, AFP Sri Lanka

A video of Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe watching the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics on television has been digitally altered to make it appear he was viewing an opposition party's political rally. The posts circulated as Sri Lanka prepared for an upcoming presidential election in September.

"Do not show this to the grandfather, he will die soon," read a sarcastic Sinhala-language caption in a Facebook post that shared the video on July 29, 2024.

Incumbent Ranil Wickremesinghe, 75, is set to contest the Sri Lankan presidential elections as an independent candidate on September 21.

The eight-second video shows him appearing to watch a political rally by the National People’s Power (NPP), a Sri Lankan leftist coalition led by the Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP).

Screenshot of the misleading post, captured on July 29

The poll will be the first presidential election held in the island nation since it declared bankruptcy in 2022.

The South Asian country faced an unprecedented economic crisis in 2022 causing months of food, fuel and medicine shortages.

In June 2024, it sealed a debt deal with bilateral lenders including China.

The video was shared alongside a similar misleading claim on Facebook here and here and on YouTube.

But the clip of the rally has been digitally inserted.

Olympics opening ceremony

A reverse image search on Google found the footage was doctored from a video posted on social media platform X in an account run by Dinouk Colombage, an official in the president's office (archived link).

A closer analysis showed Wickremesinghe was watching the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics aired by Indian news organisation Firstpost, as shown in the annotated screenshot below:

Screenshot of X post which shows the Sri Lankan president watching the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympics aired by Firstpost

The video being watched by the president starts from the 12:09 mark of Firstpost's broadcast of the Games' opening ceremony uploaded on their verified YouTube account (archived link).

Below is a screenshot comparison of the altered clip (left) and the original video (right):

Screenshot comparison of the altered clip (left) and the original video (right)

The longer version of the clip on X then cuts to Wickremesinghe congratulating the women's team captain Chamari Athapaththu on the phone after the Sri Lankan women's cricket team beat India to bag their maiden Asia Cup title on July 28, 2024 (archived link).

"A good dedication, good teamwork, tell the team and rest," he tells her.

July rally

The footage of the rally that was digitally altered into the false posts first circulated in July.

A search in the official Facebook account of Anura Kumara Dissanayake -- NPP's presidential candidate -- led to a video published on July 28, 2024 (archived link).

The caption of the post says "The whole country is together for the renaissance | Malimawa Chilaw Main Rally | NPP Sri Lanka |2024.07.28."

Chilaw is a town in the northwestern part of Sri Lanka.

The clip which appears on the TV screen in the misleading posts starts from the 55:20 mark of the footage of the livestreamed rally.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the altered clip (left) and the footage of the rally published on Dissanayake's official Facebook account, with similarities highlighted by AFP (right):

Screenshot comparison of the altered clip (left) and the footage of the rally published on Dissanayake's official Facebook account, with similarities highlighted by AFP (right)

Photos of the rally were also published on Dissanayake's official Facebook account here (archived link).

Is there content that you would like AFP to fact-check? Get in touch.

E-mail