Morphed image is shared as that of jailed ex-PM of Burma, Aung San Suu Kyi - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
July 27, 2021
A video is being widely shared on social media claiming that the woman behind bars is Aung San Suu Kyi. The person in the video claims that the woman is an ex-Prime Minister (State Counsellor of Myanmar) of Burma and that she is in this situation because of her treatment of ‘Burma and Rohingya Muslims’. Let us fact-check the claim made in the video.
Claim: Photo of jailed ex-PM of Burma, Aung San Suu Kyi.
Fact: This photo does not show ex-PM of Burma, Aung San Suu Kyi, and is a morphed version of a 2019 image published in an article. On 01 February 2021, the military in Myanmar (called Tatmadaw) seized control and declared a year-long state of emergency. After the coup, the Myanmar junta showed the first images of Suu Kyi in May 2021. But these images do not match with the picture in the video. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
When reverse image search is done on the screenshots of the video, an article published on 28 August 2019 was found. The article titled, “Aging in Prison: The Forgotten Plight of Women Behind Bars” has an identical background when compared to the picture in the video.
On 01 February 2021, the military in Myanmar (called Tatmadaw) seized control and declared a year-long state of emergency. This was done following a general election where Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) had won by a landslide. In 2015, Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD won the first openly contested election in 25 years, she was forbidden from becoming President because she has children who are foreign nationals. ‘Her official title was state counsellor, equivalent to that of a Prime Minister. The President until the 2021 coup, Win Myint, was a close aide.’ Articles about this can be read here, here, and here.
After the coup, the Myanmar junta showed first images of Suu Kyi in May 2021. But these images do not match with the picture in the video.
To sum it up, a morphed picture is being shared as an image of the jailed ex-PM of Burma, Aung San Suu Kyi.