Video claiming to show Hasina’s public appearance is from 2007
A video was recently circulated on Facebook claiming that ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina has appeared publicly before the media. However, a fact-check by Dismislab found that the circulated video is 19 years old. It shows her speaking to journalists after returning to Bangladesh from London on May 7, 2007.
On August 2, a Facebook profile posted a 10-second video with the caption, “Sheikh Hasina appeared before the media in public. She has become much thinner.” The video shows Sheikh Hasina speaking to journalists. She is also seen waving to people. Former president Zillur Rahman and former commerce minister Mohammad Abdul Jalil can be seen standing on either side of her. As of the publication of this report, the video had been viewed more than 150,000 times and shared more than 150 times.
The same profile also posted the video in multiple Facebook groups ( 1, 2 3).
As part of its investigation, Dismislab extracted several keyframes from the video and conducted a reverse image search. It led to a video published on the AP Archive YouTube channel. At the 17-second mark of that video, the appearances and clothing of Sheikh Hasina, Zillur Rahman, and Mohammad Abdul Jalil, as well as the surrounding scene, match the circulated video.
The description of the video, published on July 21, 2015, states that the footage was recorded on May 7, 2007. The description reads, “Former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, facing charges of corruption and abetting murder, arrived in Bangladesh after the military-backed government lifted a ban on her return. Speaking to reporters at Dhaka’s Zia International Airport (now Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport) after arriving from London, Hasina said she was excited to be home.’’
It is worth noting that former president Zillur Rahman and former commerce minister Mohammad Abdul Jalil, both visible in the video, died in 2013.
A search using relevant keywords led to news reports about the incident published by multiple media outlets (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). According to those reports, on May 7, 2007, Sheikh Hasina returned to Bangladesh from the United Kingdom during the state of emergency declared by the then caretaker government. The government had previously imposed a ban on her return but later withdrew it.
In other words, footage of Sheikh Hasina’s return to Bangladesh in 2007 is being circulated as a recent event.
