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Claim: Former Representative Acarous Moses Gray shared a video suggesting that the former Vice President Joseph Boakai participated in a ‘Weah step down’ protest.
Verdict: False! The video showed Boakai at an anti-rape protest in 2020, not the ‘Weah must step down’ protest.
Full Text
Acarous Moses Gray, an official of former President George Weah’s Congress for Democratic Change party, claims President Joseph Boakai was present at a ‘Weah step down’ protest in 2020.
To support his claim, he shared a 5-minute-long video on his Facebook timeline that shows Joseph Bokai, then a former vice president, present at a public protest.
In the post, he said, “Former VP Boakai encourages protesters calling for President Weah to step down…. Today he (President Joseph Boakai) goes after every perceived opponent with so much anger and bitterness to crush you from the face of the earth.”
The politician’s post was in response to a recent press statement from the government of Liberia against Bomi County Senator Edwin Snowe over an alleged inflammatory remark.
The Bomi County senator has since refuted the comments attributed to him by the government in the press statement, describing it as “malicious and politically motivated.”
The ‘Weah Step Down’ protest was held on January 6, 2020, by the Council of Patriots, a group headed by popular talk show host Henry P. Costa. It was unconstitutional.
The video posted by Acarous Moses Gray in 10 hours received over 10,000 views and more than 165 comments.
The video has also been shared on other platforms, such as here, here, here, and here, all of which claim that President Bokai freely expressed dissent against the Weah government by attending a ‘Weah must step down’ protest.
Verification
DUBAWA took screenshots from the video to fact-check this claim and subjected it to multiple reverse image searches.
The searches returned results that included an old live video published by Hott FM on August 27, 2020. The over 9-minute video was recorded when Joseph Boakai was present at an anti-rape protest at the Springs field in Monrovia. The visuals from the live video accurately matched the video shared by Acarous Moses Gray.
As shown below, a still frame taken at 32 seconds of Acarous Moses Gray’s video accurately matched the image at 12 seconds of the 2020 anti-rape protest video shared by Hottfm 107.9 Liberia.
Screenshot from Acarous Moses Gray’s video
Screenshot from Hottfm 107.9 Liberia’s video
Conclusion
Based on the above, we conclude that the video posted by Acarous Moses Gray does not show President Joseph Boakai at a ‘Weah step down’ protest but rather at a 2020 anti-rape protest.
