Viral Clip Misidentifies Muslim Cleric as Sri Lankan Deputy Minister — Footage Actually From 2022 Colombo Protests

Video of Muslim cleric wrongly presented as deputy minister

Sri Lankan MP Muneer Mulaffer has been the target of recurring misinformation since his appointment in October 2025 as deputy minister of religious and cultural affairs. A social media post claimed a circulating video showed Mulaffer taunting former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa — but the man in the footage is not Mulaffer. AFP traced the clip to a local Muslim cleric, Ismath Moulavi, and confirmed the recording was taken during the large 2022 Colombo protests demanding Rajapaksa's resignation.

What the post said

A Sinhala-language Facebook post on 11 October 2025 referenced President Anura Kumara Dissanayake and included the line:

"Thambuttegama Kota's government's new deputy minister of Buddhist affairs Mohammed Muneer Mulaffer."

That caption echoed an earlier false claim — already debunked by fact-checkers — that Mulaffer had been appointed deputy minister of Buddhist affairs, a role charged with promoting and protecting Buddhist teaching. The post also shared a short clip of a man in a skullcap speaking in Sinhala while protesters chant "Go Home Gota."

How the footage was verified

Fact-checkers conducted a reverse image search and keyword checks that led to a clearer copy of the video posted on TikTok on 10 April 2022. That upload came amid the massive street demonstrations in Colombo in April 2022, when crowds surrounded the Presidential Secretariat and called for Rajapaksa's resignation during Sri Lanka's worst economic crisis in decades. The TikTok post included the hashtags "Go Home Gota" and named Ismath Moulavi.

Moulavi told AFP via WhatsApp on 20 October 2025 that the clip shows him participating in the 2022 "aragalaya" protests and that he did not remember who originally uploaded the footage. A close visual comparison shows that Moulavi and Mulaffer are different people.

Broader context

Sri Lanka is a Buddhist-majority nation with a long history of tension between the dominant Sinhala-Buddhist community and religious and ethnic minorities, including Tamils and Muslims. Those tensions intensified after the Easter Sunday attacks on 21 April 2019, and Muslim communities have increasingly been targeted by hate speech on social media.

Online reactions to the miscaptioned clip made communal divisions clear. Some comments questioned whether a Muslim could serve in roles related to Buddhist affairs; others mocked the ruling party. AFP has previously debunked similar false claims about Sri Lankan public figures and appointments.

Takeaway

This case is an example of how old footage can be repurposed to mislead audiences during politically sensitive moments. Simple verification steps — including reverse image searches and date checks — helped establish the true origin of the clip and demonstrated that the person in the video is not MP Muneer Mulaffer.