No, this is not a photo of Indonesian presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto visiting a tsunami-hit town

This article is more than one year old.
Published on January 7, 2019 at 08:26
1 min read
By AFP Indonesia

A Facebook post has shared a photo it claims shows Indonesian presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto visiting a region devastated by a deadly tsunami in late December 2018. The post’s claim is false. The photo actually shows Subianto visiting an evacuation shelter in another part of the country after it was struck by a series of earthquakes three months' earlier.

The image in the December 28, 2018 post -- shared more than 4,000 times in just over a week -- shows Subianto interacting with people inside what appears to be an emergency shelter tent.

Snapshot of the misleading post.

The post itself says major media outlets ignored Subianto's visit because they are supporting President Joko Widodo -- popularly known as Jokowi -- ahead of April elections.

The post's text translates as: “No media reports highlighted this one…Prabowo visits a survivors’ camp in Labuan, Banten. TV stations only favour Jokowi.”

Labuan is a town at the western edge of Java island that was struck by a volcano-triggered tsunami on December 21. Here is a report from AFP about the disaster which killed over 400.

Using Google’s reverse image search, AFP found the image showed Subianto visiting survivors of a deadly earthquake on the island of Lombok in September 2018.

The photo, published by Indonesian state-run news agency Antara, appears with a text story headlined: “Prabowo, accompanied by Titiek Soeharto, visits Lombok refugees”.

Titiek Soeharto is Subianto's ex-wife and a member of his campaign team.

Snapshot of the Antara article containing the original photo.

The photo’s caption translates as “Presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto (second-left) talks to earthquake victims in a refugee camp at Guntur Macan village, Gunungsari district, West Lombok, Wednesday, September 5, 2018.”

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