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PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

Politics & government fact checks

Explore claims publishers have checked about politics & government. Read their original ratings and follow the evidence.

12,751 published reviews in this topic

dpaPolitics & government

Oekraïense vrouw verstoort tv-uitzending met protest tegen Zelensky.

Publisher’s rating: De video van het incident is getrukeerd met gebruik van een green screen. De nieuwsuitzending van Oekraïne 24 is dus nooit verstoord door een protest tegen president Zelensky.

The review investigates a video circulating online that appeared to show a woman walking into a live Ukraine 24 news broadcast with a paper criticizing Zelensky. It says the accompanying claims portrayed this as a protest against the Ukrainian president, but Ukraine 24 itself said on Facebook that the video was fake and the incident had not happened. The review’s conclusion is that the broadcast was not interrupted by such a protest. [S1: “Een vrouw wandelt in beeld tijdens een live-uitzending van de zender Oekraïne 24 met een papier waarop president Zelensky zou worden opgeroepen zich over te geven, op te houden met drugs te nemen en terug te keren naar de bühne (Zelensky was een acteur voor hij president werd). Oekraïne 24 heeft zelf al op Facebook aangegeven dat de video een vervalsing is, en het incident niet heeft plaatsgevonden.”] The review describes visual features it used to assess the footage. It notes that the woman appears much more brightly lit than the presenters, and that the studio background shows through her left shoulder at seconds three and four. It treats those details as indications that the video was composited using a green screen, rather than as footage of an actual interruption. [S1: “Wel valt op dat de belichting van de vrouw met het papier veel feller lijkt dan de presentatoren op de achtergrond. Een aanwijzing dat het hier om een vervalsing gaat. Op seconde drie en vier van de video komt het decor op de achtergrond door de linkerschouder van de vrouw heen. Ook dit is een aanwijzing dat het hier om een getrukeerd beeld gaat.”] The review distinguishes the alleged Ukraine 24 incident from a real, earlier interruption of Russian television: on 14 March, Marina Ovsyannikova appeared during a live news broadcast on Russia’s Pervyj kanal with a sign opposing state propaganda and calling for an end to the war. That separate event provides context for why the purported Ukraine 24 clip seemed plausible, but it does not establish that the Ukrainian broadcast was interrupted. [S1: “Op 14 maart liep Marina Ovsyannikova, een redacteur van het Russische Pervyj kanal (\"Eerste kanaal\", Russische staatstelevisie) in beeld tijdens een live-uitzending van het nieuws. Ze liet een bord zien waarop geschreven stond dat de Russen werden voorgelogen door staatspropaganda, vergezeld van een oproep de oorlog te stoppen.”]

dpaPolitics & government

Luxemburg hat keinen Friedensvertrag unterschrieben, steht unter dem Kommando der USA und war Gründungsmitglied der Vereinten Nationen, deren "Feinstaatenklausel" bis heute gilt.

Publisher’s rating: Diese und andere Behauptungen sind falsch. An Luxemburgs Souveränität besteht kein Zweifel.

The claim combines several assertions circulated in a Facebook post: that Luxembourg never signed a peace treaty, remains under U.S. military command, and—because it was a founding member of the United Nations—is subject to an enemy-state clause that still applies. The post also used these purported facts to argue that a U.S. military intervention was necessary. The review assesses these claims as part of that larger argument, rather than treating the lack of a peace treaty in isolation. [S1: “In einem Post bei Facebook werden vier angeblich «unbestreitbare historische Fakten» aufgeführt, die allesamt dazu führen sollen, dass es «keine Alternative zu einer offiziellen militärischen Intervention durch die United States Army in der kommenden Zeit gibt».”] Luxembourg did not sign a peace treaty after 1945, but the review says this was not unusual: it identifies Italy, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Finland as the states that concluded relevant agreements at the 1946 Paris Peace Conference, and notes that Germany initially had no peace treaty either. It explains that Luxembourg had been forcibly annexed by Germany after the invasion on 10 May 1940, while its official representatives supported resistance from exile in London. With Luxembourg’s sovereignty undisputed after the war and Luxembourg having declared war on no one, the review says there was no real reason for a peace treaty. [S1: “Zutreffend ist, dass Luxemburg nach 1945 keinen Friedensvertrag unterzeichnet hat. Allerdings haben dies im Gegensatz zu der Behauptung in dem Facebook-Post auch viele andere Staaten nicht getan.”] [S1: “Da nach 1945 die luxemburgische Souveränität unbestritten und Luxemburg auch niemandem den Krieg erklärt hatte, gab es keinen wirklichen Grund für einen Friedensvertrag.”] The review finds no evidence for the assertion that Luxembourg remains under U.S. command. It describes the country instead as a constitutional monarchy with a government led by a state minister and a parliament. It also distinguishes between the enemy-state clause’s continued presence in the UN Charter and whether it remains in force: the review says it was included in 1945, but that the UN General Assembly decided on 16 September 2005 that references to enemy states should be removed. The text’s continued presence, it says, reflects the complexity of amending the Charter, not that the clause still applies. [S1: “Für diese Behauptung gibt es keinerlei Beleg oder Erklärung. Tatsächlich ist Luxemburg eine konstitutionelle Monarchie mit einer von einem Staatsminister (Premierminister) geführten Regierung und einer Abgeordnetenkammer (Parlament) als Gesetzgebungsorgan.”] [S1: “Die «Feindstaatenklausel» lässt Zwangsmaßnahmen gegen Deutschland zu. Diese Klausel ist zwar noch in der Charta enthalten, gilt aber nicht mehr.”]

Factcrescendo Sri LankaPolitics & government

Prez. Zelensky Expressing The “V Sign” Gesture Over Prez. Putin's head while posing for a Photograph

Publisher’s rating: Altered

The image circulated with the claim that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made a V sign above Russian President Vladimir Putin during a photograph with French President Emmanuel Macron. The review says the picture was also presented as “the real reason for the war.” Its investigation found that the image combined separate photographs rather than documenting the three leaders posing together in that arrangement. The review describes the viral picture as a digitally altered meme. [S1]

Deutsche Presse-AgenturPolitics & government

Wolodymyr Selenskyj ist für den Friedensnobelpreis nominiert worden.

Publisher’s rating: Selenskyj ist nicht nominiert. Politiker haben sich zwar dafür eingesetzt, ihn im Nachhinein in die Auswahl für den Preis zu nehmen, dies hat das Nobelinstitut jedoch abgelehnt.

The claim concerned whether Ukrainian President Wolodymyr Selenskyj had actually been nominated for the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize. The review describes a Facebook post that presented a document asking that Selenskyj and the people of Ukraine be nominated that year. The document was a request to nominate, not evidence that the nomination had been accepted or recorded: the review says it asked for “Selenskyj und die Menschen in der Ukraine für die Preisverleihung in diesem Jahr zu nominieren.” [S1] The review explains that the ordinary deadline for submitting nominations to the Nobel Committee was January 31 each year. In mid-March 2022, a group of European politicians published an open letter asking for the deadline to be extended to March 31 so that Selenskyj could still be nominated. Thus, the politicians’ effort described in the review was a request for a change to the procedure, rather than confirmation that a nomination had been made under the existing rules. [S1] The decisive point was the response attributed to Nobel Institute director Olav Njølstad. The review says he told the Russian state news agency Tass on March 21 that the January deadline could not be extended. It concludes that Selenskyj had been proposed for nomination, but was not nominated for the 2022 prize. The distinction between proposing a nomination and being formally nominated is central to why the circulated document did not establish the post’s claim. [S1]

Fact CrescendoPolitics & government

Claim: Annamalai not commented regarding modi and journalists

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The review investigates a social-media card attributed to Tamil Nadu BJP leader Annamalai. The card claimed that Modi detests journalists and attributed to Annamalai remarks that journalists were like beggars for asking when the promised 15 lakh would be given, and that this was why Modi avoided press conferences. The review says the card was shared on Facebook on March 18, 2022, by an account named Ruskin Jose. The review reports that the card’s Tamil font and design did not resemble Junior Vikatan’s usual cards, and that its date had been erased. It says the investigators found no matching card from Junior Vikatan and sent the image to the publication’s digital manager, Re. Su. Venkatesh, who confirmed it was not genuine. The review also says its search found no interview in which Annamalai made the alleged remarks. On that evidence, the review concludes that the card was fabricated, rather than an authentic report of Annamalai’s comments. It also reports that a BJP functionary attributed the card to a journalist known for making fake cards. The excerpt does not provide independent documentation of that attribution, so the stated confirmation from Junior Vikatan and the unsuccessful search for an interview are the more directly described checks.