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Fact check: Video of PTI’s Barrister Gohar calling for Washington protest against army chief is a deepfake

Posts from PTI supporters on multiple social media platforms on Tuesday shared a clip of PTI’s interim Chairman Barrister Ali Gohar allegedly urging overseas Pakistanis to participate in a protest on June 14 against the army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir. However, the video is a deepfake and he has not issued any such message.

A senior trade delegation from Pakistan is due in Washington this week for talks with United States officials on the recently imposed American tariffs and related economic issues, diplomatic sources told Dawn. The PTI claims that Field Marshal Asim Munir would visit Washington around the same time, something that neither the US nor Pakistani officials have confirmed.

While official dates for these visits are being withheld due to political sensitivities, the PTI, which has long opposed the current Pakistani establishment, has announced plans to stage large-scale demonstrations during the visit.

In a tweet posted over the weekend, PTI’s Secretary for Overseas Affairs, Sajjad Burki, called for a protest outside the Pakistan embassy in Washington on June 14, coinciding with the expected presence of senior Pakistani officials in the US capital.

On Tuesday, an X user shared an 18-second clip allegedly showing Barrister Gohar urging overseas Pakistanis to participate in a protest on June 14 against the army chief.

The caption of the post read: “Barrister Gohar’s major announcement. Call for a protest demonstration on June 14.”

In the clip, Gohar says: “As the chairman of PTI, I appeal to all overseas Pakistanis living in the US and the West to actively participate in the protest being held on June 14 in front of the Pakistan Embassy in Washington, DC, so that the true face of Field Marshal Munir can be exposed before the world.”

The post gained 61,000 views and was shared 619 times.

Gohar’s alleged speech was shared in written form by another X user alongside a photo of his, garnering 46,000 views.

The same video was shared by other users on X as can be seen here, here, here and here.

The same viral clip was also found on Facebook as can be seen here, here and here, accumulating 12,490 views.

The clip was also shared on TikTok.

A fact-check was initiated to determine the veracity of the claim due to its high virality and keen public interest in Imran, the PTI’s protest call, the party’s relationship with the military leadership and all related developments.

Observing the timeline of the X account that first shared the video showed that the user has the following written in their bio: “AI, memes and satire exposing fascism & corruption in PK.”

The user had also shared many other AI-generated images and videos on their timeline.

Observing the video showed inconsistencies such as the lack of direct eye contact with the camera, the line of sight not syncing up with the direction of the face and unnaturally high swaying throughout while speaking, which is not how the PTI leader talks in his addresses and videos.

Interestingly, a video shared by the account of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur of the exact same message, calling for the protest in Washington against the army chief, displayed the same inconsistencies.

Analysis of Gohar’s video using tools to detect manipulation showed that Attestiv assigned it a suspicion rating of 57 per cent while the results from Hive Moderation and Deepware were inconclusive.

A reverse image search and keyword search for “Barrister Gohar”, “protest call”, “June 14” and “Washington” led to no news articles from mainstream media outlets that reported on any such alleged video address by the PTI leader, nor was any recent video message of Gohar found speaking with the same background. Neither result was obtained for CM Gandapur saying anything like that.

Instead, a video clip posted on X the same day by Usman Chaudhry, a researcher and environmental journalist according to his bio, showed Gohar responding to a question about the PTI issuing a protest call during the army chief’s visit to the United States.

His response is transcribed below:

“The PTI has not given any protest call and nor does the PTI do it. If people abroad do anything then it is their choice. There has been no such press release from the PTI and nor has the PTI said to anyone to do any protest so from our side, we have not given any such call.”

Contacted for comment via Dawn correspondent Nadir Guramani about the video, Gohar said: “Fake and AI-generated”.

Therefore, the fact-check determined that the claim that a video shows PTI Chairman Barrister Gohar for a protest in Washington on June 14 against the army chief is false. The video is a deepfake and no credible news outlet has reported on any such alleged call by Gohar.

This fact check was originally published by iVerify Pakistan — a project of CEJ-IBA and UNDP.



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