US analyst did not slam rally for ex-Pakistan PM Khan as 'total flop'

"PTI's final call has ended," Pakistani politician Jan Achakzai wrote alongside the screenshots in a November 25 X post -- referring to Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party.

His post, which raked more than 270,000 views, appears to show two messages from Michael Kugelman, South Asia Institute Director at Washington-based think tank The Wilson Center, who regularly comments on affairs in Pakistan (archived link). 

"PTI's final call has become a total flop. Two days in, not a single PTI worker reached Islamabad. PTI leaders are now resorting to local photo ops to cover the embarrassment. The so-called revolution has ended before it even began!" the first screenshot read.

The second shows another purported post from Kugelman saying he stood by his remarks following "intimidation" from PTI-linked accounts. 

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Screenshot of the false post on X taken December 12, 2024

The screenshots -- earlier debunked by iVerify Pakistan -- made the rounds on X and Facebook as Khan called for more supporters to join protests over his incarceration, following deadly confrontations between marchers and security forces (archived link).

The former international cricketer has been jailed since August 2023, sidelined by dozens of legal cases he claims were confected to prevent his comeback in elections this year marred by rigging allegations.

Despite a ban on public gatherings, convoys of pro-Khan demonstrators marched to the capital, hauling aside roadblocks and skirmishing with police and paramilitary forces firing volleys of rubber bullets and tear gas (archived link).

Police said on November 27 they had arrested nearly 1,000 protesters after crowds were evicted from the city centre in a sweeping security crackdown (archived link).

Fabricated screenshots

A search of Kugelman's X account found no trace of the posts shared online. Instead, he clarified he never published the messages (archived link).

"This is another fabrication. Both tweets below are fake. I never said any of this," he wrote on November 25.

In an earlier X post, Kugelman in fact said that the pro-Khan rallies demonstrated the power that he ex-leader continued to wield over his supporters (archived link).

Furthermore, the screenshots contain features that suggest they are not authentic X posts.

The posts are dated November 24, but feature the terms 'Retweets' and 'Quote Tweets" -- which were replaced with 'Repost' in September 2023 as Twitter rebranded as X (archived link).

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AFP has debunked a wave of misinformation around pro-Khan protests in Islamabad, including unrelated images of crowds in Karachi and Libya falsely shared as his supporters.