This video has circulated online since November 2015

This article is more than one year old.
Published on June 1, 2020 at 06:20
2 min read
By AFP Myanmar

A video has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times in multiple Facebook posts alongside a claim it shows an interview that Min Aung Hlaing, the commander-in-chief of the Myanmar army, conducted in 2020. The claim is false; this video actually shows a 2015 interview with the senior general.

The video was published here on Facebook on May 11, 2020. It has been viewed more than 450,000 times.

The four-minute 52-second video shows Senior General Min Aung Hlaing taking questions from the press outside a polling station after casting his vote.

A screenshot of the misleading Facebook post taken on May 28, 2020

The post’s Burmese caption translates to English as: “Commander-in-Chief and media interview ahead of 2020 election”.

Myanmar is expected to hold a general election in late 2020.

The video was also published here, here and here on Facebook, alongside a similar claim.

The claim is false.

A combined reverse image and keyword search found a longer version of the same video published here on the YouTube channel of 7 Day News, a news outlet based in Myanmar, on November 7, 2015, titled “Senior General Min Aung Hlaing”.

AFP subsequently checked the upload date for the 7 Day TV video with Amnesty International's YouTube data viewer tool and found it was published on November 8, 2015.

A screenshot of the YouTube video published on November 7, 2015

Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in the misleading post (L) and the YouTube video:

A further keyword search found this November 9, 2015 report by the Myawaddy, a newspaper operated by the Myanmar army, which states Min Aung Hlaing gave comments to the press after casting his vote at a polling station in Zeyathiri township in Naypyidaw on the morning of November 8, 2015.

Below is a screenshot comparison between the video in the misleading post (L) and the Myawaddy photo, with corresponding elements circled by AFP:

The report reads, in part: “The Senior General answered questions raised by the media, saying: 'It is hoped that the party that the people depend on will win. There would be no reason to deny the result as it is the people's choice. We will stand by the rightful victory of whichever party or organisation is chosen by the public. The country is now marching towards a multi-party democracy.'"

The 2015 Myanmar general election was held on November 8, 2015. Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won a landslide victory. Here is an AFP report on the ballot.

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