East Timor religious event falsely shared as Turkey protest
- Published on March 25, 2025 at 04:26
- 3 min read
- By Magdalini GKOGKOU, AFP Greece
- Translation and adaptation Chayanit ITTHIPONGMAETEE , AFP Thailand
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"Hundreds of thousands of Turkish citizens gathered to protest the detention of Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu to demand the president's resignation," reads a Thai-language Facebook post on March 20, 2025.
It includes a 26-second clip showing a large crowd and vehicles moving along a street at night.
Similar posts also emerged in other languages including English, Arabic and Greek after Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu's March 19 arrest in a graft and terror probe sparked Turkey's worst unrest in years (archived link).
Imamoglu, 53, of the opposition CHP party, is widely seen as the only politician capable of defeating longtime leader Erdogan at the ballot box.
The circulating clip, however, was filmed in East Timor and not Turkey as the posts claim.
A reverse image search using the video's keyframes led to a clearer version of the footage posted on TikTok on September 11, 2024 (archived link).
The caption says it was taken when Pope Francis visited the Southeast Asian nation.
The pontiff held mass in East Timor's capital Dili on September 10, 2024 which according to the Vatican drew in more than 600,000 attendees -- nearly half the country's predominant Christian population (archived link).
A poster for the pope is also visible at the video's 14-second mark.
AFP confirmed the location of the video by comparing it to Google Maps imagery of a street in Dili.
AFP has debunked earlier posts that have misrepresented the footage.
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