In Summary:
- On December 17, Facebook was flooded with different images of people with bloody injuries or blood stains on their clothes
- Those sharing these images claimed protesters participating in the Capitol Hill protest on December 17 were being injured or killed by police
- We have verified some of the photos by conducting a reverse image search and found that they are misleading. Some were taken from events that occurred long before the December 17 protest.
During and after Tuesday’s protest in Monrovia at the Capitol Building, many images emerged online, with those sharing them claiming that they were images from the scenes of the protest. A staff of the embattled speaker also claimed in a Facebook post that a woman was killed by the Police.
Claim #1
SAPA TV Liberia, a Facebook blog, shared images of people with bloodstains claiming that they were from Tuesday’s protest action up Capitol Hill.
Rating Justification
A reverse image search conducted on some of the photos shows that they were taken from different incidents that occurred long ago in different places.
One particular photo of a man with a bloodstain on his shirt and head with several wounds was taken from a January 2020 violence that erupted among supporters of political parties in Sierra Leone.
Another photo posted by SAPA TV Liberia was a photo from the June 7, 2019 protest in Monrovia. In the photo, more than one person can be seen wearing a T-shirt with the photo of Montserrado District 10 Representative Yekeh Kolubah with the inscription and photo with the wording: “Hon. Yekeh Y. Koluba says Save the State June 7”.
Conclusion
Based on these facts, we conclude that some of the images shared online following the Tuesday, December 17 protest are not images taken during the protest on Capitol Hill.
Some were taken from Sierra Leone during a 2020 violent clash while others were taken from the June 7, 2019 protest in Monrovia.
Claim #2
Meanwhile, Byron Brown, who is the Media Supervisor for the office of embattled House Speaker Fonati Koffa, also posted an image of a woman being carried by an officer of the Liberia National Police. He accompanied the photos with a claim that the woman was killed by the police.
Brown’s Facebook post generated over 200 comments with many commenters describing the claim as misleading.
The Claim
Brown wrote on Facebook: “One harmless citizen shot and killed”
Rating Justification
To verify the image, we reviewed a Facebook live recording done by OK FM during the protest. The footage shows a lady struggling to make her way from the back of the Capitol to the entrance of the police headquarters after teargas was fired by the Police.
She then collapsed to the floor. In the video, an officer of the LNP can be seen carrying the elderly woman in both hands from the tear gas scene. The lady was later resuscitated and did not die or was killed as was claimed.
It was from this video that Byron extracted the image and shared it on Facebook. The Police did not report any death during a press conference after the protest subsided.
The LNP held a press conference after the protest action and did not report any deaths from Tuesday’s protest.
Conclusion
Based on this fact, we conclude that the image shared by Byron Brown in the Facebook post claiming that “a harmless citizen was shot and killed” during Tuesday’s protest is misleading.
