Fact Check: Thai Prime Minister did not sit on floor during meeting with Brunei's Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah
The collage shows the current Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha sitting on the floor during a meeting with the Sultan.
By Newsmeter Network Published on 13 Jun 2021 1:42 PM GMT
Hyderabad: A photo collage comparing three separate meetings of three Thai leaders - former Prime Ministers Thaksin Shinawatra and Yingluck Shinawatra and Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha - with Brunei's Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah has gone viral on Facebook. The collage shows the current Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha sitting on the floor during a meeting with the Sultan.
The caption in Thai translates to English as, "Election is different from robbery." This caption is an apparent reference to May 2014 military coup that deposed Thailand's elected government and installed Prayut as the junta chief.
Many Facebook users also shared the same photos on an online forum.
Fact Check
The photos are misleading.
NewsMeter did a reverse image search on Google and found the original photo that was published on 25 March 2015 on 'Kapook'.
Below is a comparison of the doctored image in the misleading posts (left) and the original photo.
We ran keyword searches and found similar photographs published by the Thai ministry of foreign affairs of a meeting between Prayut and Hassanal in March 2015.
After multiple keyword searches, we did not find any credible news or government reports that indicated or showed that Prayut sat on the floor during his meeting with Hassanal.
AFP has also debunked the misleading photos.
Other images included in the photo collage that shows former Prime Ministers Thaksin and Yingluck with the Brunei Sultan had previously appeared in a blog and a 2011 news report.
Hence, the photo showing Thai Prime Minister Prayut sitting on the floor during his meeting with the Brunei Sultan is misleading.
