Video shows land rights demonstration in Chiang Mai, not Bangkok rally against Myanmar leader

Published on April 16, 2025 at 03:58
3 min read
By AFP Thailand

Protesters in Bangkok rallied against the Myanmar junta chief as he visited the city for a regional summit after a devastating earthquake killed more than 3,600 people. But a video of a demonstration circulating online was in fact filmed in Thailand's northern Chiang Mai city at a land rights protest by indigenous groups.

"Min Aung Hlaing, who was asked to leave someone else's country during his visit," reads a Burmese-language Facebook post shared on April 4.

The accompanying video of a crowd chanting in front of a building features the same text overlay. It has since racked up more than 3,800 views.

Screenshot taken on April 11, 2025 of the false post

The video was shared with the same claim on Facebook, YouTube and TikTok.

It surfaced after Myanmar's junta chief Min Aung Hlaing held talks with leaders from Bay of Bengal littoral nations at a plush Bangkok hotel on April 4, a week after a devastating magnitude-7.7 earthquake killed more than 3,600 people in his home country (archived link).

The decision to invite him has drawn criticism, and protesters hung a banner from a bridge outside the venue reading: "We do not welcome murderer Min Aung Hlaing."

However, the circulating video actually shows a land rights protest in northern Thailand's Chiang Mai days before the junta chief visited Bangkok.

A keyword search on TikTok for the username seen in the Facebook video led to a post by a Thai user on March 30, featuring a hashtag reading "protest for land rights" in its caption (archived link).

The user, who also posted other videos of the rally, demanded land rights in the video caption (archived here and here).

Thai-language sticker text reads, "If your land is available, ten thousand of us are ready to enter your home."

Screenshot comparison of the false post (left) and the original TikTok post

Broadcaster Thai PBS published similar photos from the rally on Facebook on March 29 in a post that stated forest community and northern farmers' groups gathered in front of the Chiang Mai City Hall to demand the government review forest conservation laws that violated their rights (archived link).

One of the Thai PBS photos shows the same people seen in the TikTok video (archived link).

Screenshot comparison of the TikTok video (left) and the Thai PBS photo with similarities highlighted by AFP

Google Street View imagery also shows the building in the TikTok video is the Chiang Mai City Hall, more than 590 kilometres (370 miles) from Bangkok (archived link).

AFP has debunked other false claims surrounding the devastating earthquake in Myanmar here.

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

E-mail