Scene from Bangladesh rally misrepresented as Philippine religious sect protest
- Published on July 14, 2026 at 09:45
- 2 min read
- By Tatiana MALIGRO, AFP Philippines
Supporters of a powerful religious sect in the Philippines have held rallies in support of a senator and church member indicted for corruption, but an image of a huge crowd marching along a street shared online is weeks-old and unrelated. It actually shows a demonstration held in Bangladesh in mid-June against alleged violence directed towards undocumented migrants at the country's border with India.
"This is just the start. More of us are coming to support Senator Rodante Marcoleta," reads a Tagalog-language Facebook post shared on June 30.
It includes an image that shows a street filled with people holding placards.
Thousands of Iglesia Ni Cristo (Church of Christ) followers rallied in Manila for days after the government announced Marcoleta -- an ally of Vice President Sara Duterte and a member of the sect -- would be charged with corruption tied to his election campaign on June 29 (archived link).
He was later indicted for graft and "plunder" -- a non-bailable offence in the Southeast Asian country of 116 million -- over his alleged failure to declare $1.2 million in unused election campaign funds (archived link).
Similar claims also spread elsewhere on Facebook, but the image does not show the rallies.
Bangladesh protests
A reverse image search found a video shared on the Facebook page DiscoverBangla24 on June 15 showing the same scene (archived link).
"11-party's demonstration on a road in the capital to stop push-in at the border," its Bengali-language caption reads.
Bangladeshi media outlets Projonmo24 and Bangladesh Pratidin published similar videos of the protest (archived here and here).
Google Street View imagery of the area also matches the scene in the image, showing the same overpass and railway lines close to Shahbagh metro station (archived link).
The Jamaat-e-Islami-led alliance of 11 parties staged a rally in Shahbagh in central Dhaka on the day against India's deportation and alleged violence towards illegal migrants at the border with Bangladesh (archived link).
Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India has stepped up deportations of illegal migrants to Bangladesh, a campaign that critics say unfairly targets Bengali-speaking Muslims (archived link).
India has informally "pushed back" illegal migrants into Bangladesh for decades, but activists say the victory of Modi's Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party in West Bengal has boosted the deportation campaign.
AFP previously debunked similar false claims that misrepresented the church's other rallies here and here.
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