As the events unfold after a military coup in Myanmar, an old image of its de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi in which she is visibly upset, has been revived on social media with the false claim that she was seen ‘crying’ on being detained.
The image dates back to August 2017 when Suu Kyi had attended the funeral service for the National League for Democracy (NLD) party’s former chairman Aung Shwe in Yangon.
CLAIM
The image was shared with the caption, “She is myanmar president . Who killed lot of rohingya Muslim. Now she is crying . She arrested by myanmar army . Allah save all Muslims . Amin (sic)“
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
On a reverse image search we came across an article ‘Malala tells Aung San Suu Kyi 'world is waiting' for her to act over Rohingya violence,’ on The Guardian, dated 4 September 2017, carrying the image.
The image was credited to news agency AFP/Getty Images.
With a keyword search, we then found the original image on Getty Images. It was taken on 17 August 2017 by photographer Aung Kyaw Htet for AFP.
The image has been captioned, “Myanmar's State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi leaves after attending the funeral service for the National League for Democracy (NLD) party's former chairman Aung Shwe in Yangon.”
Further, Suu Kyi was the State Counsellor of Myanmar – not its President – who had led the country’s transition into a partial democracy after nearly two decades of military rule in the 90s and 2000s.
Myanmar military on Monday, 1 February, declared a one-year state of emergency in the country and detained Suu Kyi and other senior figures from the NLD party.
The army had earlier warned that it will take action if the complaints about alleged election fraud were not addressed.
However, this image of Suu Kyi is from 2017 and not from her recent detention.
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