No, this photo does not show Indonesian president Joko Widodo sleeping in a refugee camp on quake-hit Lombok Island
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on October 22, 2018 at 11:00
- Updated on October 23, 2018 at 04:32
- 2 min read
- By AFP Indonesia
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The misleading post -- which has been shared some 1,900 times with 2,100 reactions -- was first shared to Facebook on September 6, 2018, with a caption that says: “This is the real leader of the people”.
The post contains a screenshot from what appears to be a Whatsapp group chat. It includes a photo of a man resting on a stretcher beneath a pink sleeping bag.
The accompanying text says: “This is President Jokowi sleeping at an evacuation camp in Lombok. I’m very proud to have a leader like this.”
The man in the photo is actually Central Java Governor Ganjar Pranowo, the governor’s spokesman Lilik Henry Ristanto told AFP.
Lilik said the photo was taken on September 2 when Pranowo was volunteering at an evacuation camp in northern Lombok, one of areas hardest hit by the quakes.
Earthquakes and aftershocks since July have killed about 550 people on Lombok and forced hundreds of thousands into evacuation shelters or tents.
The image was posted to Pranowo’s official Instagram account @ganjar_pranowo on September 3, with a caption saying: “Sleeping! After wandering around Lombok for a day… Thank God for your blessings.”
The photo also appeared in an article by major Indonesian news website Tribunnews on September 3 about Pranowo cutting short his Lombok trip to attend his swearing-in ceremony in Jakarta.
Indonesia’s presidential press secretary Bey Machmudin told AFP the person in the picture was not Widodo.
Widodo was in Lombok on September 2 and Machmudin said he had slept in a camp for people displaced by the earthquake.
“He did indeed sleep in a tent but the pictures circulating online are most likely not of him because we don't expose him while sleeping,"
"There were no photographers when he slept in the tent and we don't take pictures of him while sleeping," he added.
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