In Summary: In the wake of Thursday’s standoff between supporters of the Congress for Democratic Change and state security officers, there have been numerous social media posts, claiming that protesters were killed. We have fact-checked these claims including the verification of images and found no evidence of any death.
On August 22, social media particularly Facebook was flooded with claims that officers of the Liberia National Police shot and killed supporters of the Congress of Democratic Change during the August 22 protest.
Supporters of the CDC protested by blocking Tubman Boulevard, accusing state security officers of provocation when officers of the Liberia Drug Enforcement Agency (LDEA) launched an operation in the area.
Facebook users Cyrus Konah Idea, and Foday N. Massaquoi made separate posts in which they claimed that LNP officers shot and killed supporters of the CDC in Thursday’s standoff. These posts can be seen here and here.
Acarous Moses Gray, a former lawmaker of Montserrado County who is also a stalwart of the CDC, also made a Facebook post alleging a report of one death. This post garnered over 850 comments and was shared 29 times.
The Claim
“Mr. Joseph N. Boakai is taking Liberia to War: Shooting Live Bullets, killing two citizens & wounding several persons at the CDC Party’s Headquarters is a recipe for disaster”.
Rating Justification
To fact-check this claim, we first verified the video shared in Foday’s Facebook post.
We found that the same video has been posted by many individuals who made similar claims of live bullets being fired by the police but did not report or show proof of any death at the CDC headquarters in the video.
A reverse image search of the video shows results of police rioting from different incidents and regions that are not related to the clash at the CDC headquarters on August 22.
Also, the video posted by Cyrus claiming that the police were celebrating after killing supporters of the CDC at the party headquarters was a video posted at 7:00 am on August 22 by Inspector General of Police Gregory Coleman. We analyzed the video and found that it was posted several hours before the protest began.
To further verify these claims, we contacted the LNP through its spokesperson, Cecelia Clarke. She said there was no death reported at the August 22 incident at the CDC headquarters.
“There’s one person currently at the JFK. There was no death,” Clarke said. She confirmed that the photo on FrontPage Africa Friday publication of a man lying in a white shirt is the same person being treated at JFK.
Also, there has not been any official statement from the authorities of the CDC mentioning any reported death during the protest.
We conducted a reverse image search of the photo with the “Closing Argument” watermark, but the results from the search were recent times the photo was shared online.
Additionally, a careful analysis of another photo shows that this photo is unrelated to the August 22 protest. The side wall and the drainage by the road side are not the same as the road at the CDC headquarters.
This photo was taken on the Japan Freeway during a political clash between supporters of the CDC and ALCOP before the October 2023 elections.
Conclusion
Based on these facts, we conclude that a Facebook post claiming that there were deaths at the CDC headquarters on Thursday is unproven. There is no proof of any death during the August 22 protest.
