Video of protest outside Indonesian court falsely linked to Thai-Cambodian border clashes

Published on August 18, 2025 at 06:23
4 min read
By Chayanit ITTHIPONGMAETEE, Gemma CAHYA, AFP Thailand, AFP Indonesia

Following a ceasefire between Bangkok and Phnom Penh that ended five days of deadly border clashes, a video of a rally in Indonesia was falsely shared in Khmer-language posts claiming it showed Thai protesters demanding their government recover the bodies of soldiers killed in the conflict. The clip was filmed outside the Manado District Court in Indonesia's North Sulawesi province, and depicts a protest about a court-ordered land seizure.

"Soldiers' families gather to demand (authorities) find the missing bodies of unaccounted for Thai soldiers," reads the Khmer-language caption of a Facebook video shared on August 5, 2025.

The video, which has been viewed more than 13,000 times, shows a large crowd that rushes into a two-storey building with an orange-tiled roof.

It circulated after Cambodia and Thailand agreed to a truce that came into effect on July 29, ending five days of clashes on their 800-kilometre (500-mile) boundary that killed at least 43 people on both sides (archived here and here).

The fighting, the latest eruption of violence in a long-standing dispute over contested border temples, also displaced more than 300,000 people.

Following the truce, Thailand's deputy defence minister Nattapon Narkphanit called on Cambodia to retrieve the bodies of its fallen troops at the border and Cambodian social media users also claimed the corpses of Thai soldiers had been left at the frontier (archived here and here).

Screenshot of the false Facebook post captured on August 16, 2025, with a red X added by AFP

The footage was also shared in similar Khmer-language posts on Facebook and TikTok, as well as in a few Thai posts linking it to the border spat.

But the video does not show either Thai or Cambodian protesters, and is unrelated to the recent clashes.

Disinformation about the conflict has continued to spread online despite the ceasefire, with misleading visuals and emotionally fuelled falsehoods stoking fear and hatred between the neighbours (archived link).

Indonesian protest

A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the falsely shared video led to the same clip posted on TikTok on July 31 (archived link).

Its Indonesian-language caption reads, "Demonstration #MandoCourt #LandMafia".

Screenshot comparison of the falsely shared video (left) and the July 31 TikTok clip (right)

Subsequent keyword searches led to reports in local media outlets the Manado Post and Kompas TV on July 31 about hundreds of people rallying outside the Manado District Court in Indonesia's North Sulawesi province (archived here and here).

According to the reports, protesters were demanding the cancellation of the court-ordered seizure of land in Wisma Sabang, a district in Manado.

A similar video of the protest was also posted on the Manado Times' Instagram account on July 31 (archived link).

Screenshot comparisons of clips from the falsely shared video (left) and the Manado Times' Instagram account (centre and right), with similarities highlighted by AFP

Features in the falsely shared video -- such as a red-and-white flag and text on the building also match Google Maps photos of the Manado District Court (archived link).

The flag is Indonesia's national flag and the text reads "Pengadilan Negeri", which translates as "court district".

Screenshot comparison of the falsely shared clip (left) and the Google Maps photo (right), with corresponding elements highlighted by AFP

AFP has previously debunked a similar false claim about supposed unrecovered bodies at the Thailand-Cambodia border, as well as other misinformation related to the countries' border clashes.

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