A Twitter account in the name of Ambassador Deng Xijun shared three photos claiming they are all from #Prague, #CzechRepublic protests. Amb. Deng Xijun, is China’s Ambassador to the Association of South East Asian Nations.
Background
In the past couple of months, a number of countries have gone to the streets to protest over the high cost of living in their countries. Czech republic, the most recent in this list. On September 3, 2022 tens of thousands took to the streets of Prague, Czech’s capital to protest over high energy prices.
The protests began after the country survived a no-confidence vote over new energy prices. Now, it would take more than 84 votes from the 200 lawmakers to move this motion. However, only 84 voted in support of this motion.
By July this year, Czech Republic’s inflation rate was at 17.5%, with the rise in energy prices being the biggest contributor. However, in the past year, according to the Energy Price Index, there was a noticeable increase in the prices of electricity and natural gas. A trend that has been there since 2020.
Verification
The first image shared on Amb. Deng Xijun‘s tweet was indeed taken during the protests in Prague, Czech Republic. In these reverse image searches, this image is placed on Wenceslas Square in Prague. Just in front of the Statue of Saint Wenceslas. To place it more accurately, it was taken from the Národni muzeum. Similarly, the second image was taken during the recent protests in the country. Reverse image searches provided on Google equally place this image in the recent protest in Czech Republic.
The difference in these images shared comes in on the third one. In this third frame, protesters are seen carrying Israeli flags with the image of Israel’s longest-serving leader, Benjamin Netanyahu. More importantly, reverse image searches date this image back to December 14, 2018, in Israel.
Verdict
These images claiming to show the recent protests in Czech Republic are PARTLY TRUE.
This fact-check was produced by Africa Uncensored with support from Code for Africa’s PesaCheck, African Fact Checking Alliance network and the United Nations Development Programme.
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