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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.

12,754 published reviews in this topic

DUBAWAPolitics & government

A viral video alleges that Nigerian Embassy in DRC ejected from its premises.

Publisher’s rating: False

The video portrayed a building as the Nigerian Embassy in the Democratic Republic of Congo under attack, with property allegedly thrown out. DUBAWA’s review distinguishes the embassy building from a separate property where some diplomats lived: it says the embassy itself remained intact, while the dispute involved that residence. The review reports that some diplomats’ belongings were removed, not that the embassy was ejected from its premises. (S1: “The video that went viral on social media platforms, showed a building purportedly belonging to the Nigerian Embassy in Congo under attack with properties belonging to the embassy allegedly thrown out of the building causing serious damage.”; “The embassy building was not affected; but the residence of some diplomats was.”) To check the claim, the review recounts that the News Agency of Nigeria contacted Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson Ferdinand Nwonye. Nwonye confirmed a dispute with the host country but said embassy activities were not disrupted and the embassy was not shut down. He described the contested property as a residence used by officials and said Congolese authorities intervened and returned it to the Nigerian mission. (S1: “When the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) contacted Mr Ferdinand Nwonye, the Spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs he admitted that there was a dispute between the Embassy and their host.”; “I can also confirm that activities were not disrupted in our embassy in Congo. The Nigerian Embassy in Democratic Republic of Congo was not shut down.”; “When we reported the matter to the Congolese government, the country authorities intervened immediately and the property was handed back to the Nigerian mission.”) The review also notes that the dispute’s cause was not established in the material it examined. It reports conflicting accounts about who owned or provided the property, and says the video’s French correspondent mentioned a court order without explaining its reason. Those unresolved details do not alter the central distinction in the evidence: the reported dispute concerned a residence, whereas the video’s allegation concerned the embassy being ejected. (S1: “The cause of the dispute is still somewhat unknown.”; “This, of course, is in clear contradiction with Mr Ferdinand Nwonye, claims about the embassy owing the property.”; “She only remarked on a court order being issued.”)

FACTLYPolitics & government

UAE Crown Prince Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahya wore a Jai Shri Ram headscarf

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns an image circulating on social media that appeared to show UAE Crown Prince Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahya wearing a headscarf printed with “Jai Shri Ram” when he met Modi. FACTLY identifies the setting as the occasion when Modi received the UAE’s highest civilian award, the Order of Zayed. The review says that press coverage of the event showed the Crown Prince wearing a plain white headscarf, rather than one with the slogan.

Fact CrescendoPolitics & government

Claim: Freedom Fighter V O Chidambaram owned ship picture

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

Fact Crescendo investigated a Facebook post presenting an old-looking sailing ship as the Swadeshi vessel operated by freedom fighter V. O. Chidambaram. The post called it a rare photograph of “his Swadeshi ship” and asked people to share it; the review says it had been posted by a Facebook account named Gold on July 9, 2018, and shared more than 87,000 times. The review’s conclusion concerns that specific sailing-ship image, not the broader historical fact that Chidambaram established a shipping company. (S1) The review describes using reverse-image search to trace the picture. It found references identifying the vessel as the “Pirates” ship Neptuno at Barcelona docks, then searched that name for further information. According to the review, the ship was a model of a 17th-century Spanish vessel, built in 1985 for the film *Pirates*, and later used for other films and television series. Those details place the pictured ship in Spain and decades after Chidambaram’s shipping activity, contradicting the post’s identification. (S1) The review also compared the viral picture with images it found of ships associated with Chidambaram: one on an Indian government postage stamp and another described online as a ship that travelled to Colombo in 1907. It says neither resembled the viral sailing ship. The review notes an important limitation, however: it could not establish whether the stamp image depicted the ship he operated or a model, and it does not identify the precise date or circumstances in which the viral picture was taken. Its conclusion that the shared image was not Chidambaram’s vessel rests on the Neptuno identification and the 1985 construction information. (S1)

RMIT ABC Fact CheckPolitics & government

A lot of people have been dispossessed of their lands in Australia because of the Mabo decision and native title

Publisher’s rating: Baseless

The review examined Pauline Hanson’s assertion on 2GB radio that native title had caused many Australians to be dispossessed of their lands. It assessed dispossession as the loss of a legal title to land, rather than loss of public access or a person’s occupation of property. The investigation says it asked experts whether any freehold titleholder had been dispossessed through a native title case; the experts could identify no such decision. The legal distinctions were central to the review’s finding. It explains that native title claims can be made only over Crown land, while native title is extinguished when freehold title is granted. It also notes that the High Court’s Mabo ruling concerned the Meriam people’s claim to land in the Murray Islands; it did not automatically transfer control of all unallocated Crown land to Indigenous owners. The ruling established a precedent for later cases, but the review found no basis for Hanson’s claim that it had led to widespread dispossession of land titleholders. The review also addressed pastoral leases, which can cover Crown land: it reports that the Wik decision found pastoralists’ and native title holders’ rights could coexist, with the leaseholder’s rights prevailing in cases of conflict. Its conclusion is specifically about dispossession of land title; the review distinguishes that from a loss of public access, which it says is not dispossession in that sense.

FACTLYPolitics & government

Kashmir lady argue with Rahul Gandhi over Kashmir issue

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

FACTLY examined a video showing a woman speaking to Rahul Gandhi and addressed claims about their exchange concerning Kashmir. The review says the encounter occurred on a flight as Gandhi was returning to Delhi after being prevented from entering Srinagar. It describes the woman as explaining the conditions people faced under restrictions imposed after the abrogation of Article 370. The review reports that it examined the full video and gives an English translation of the woman’s Hindi speech. In it, she describes children being prevented from leaving their homes and says her brother, a heart patient, was held after he went to search for his missing child. She says the family had not known his whereabouts for ten days and was living under stress. This account supports that she raised the situation in Kashmir with Gandhi, but does not establish that she argued with him in the sense of challenging him or confronting him. The review specifically rejects the additional viral claims that she questioned why Gandhi wanted to visit Kashmir, said Modi was doing good for Kashmiris, or told him to go back. It states that she did not ask the purpose of his visit or tell him to leave. Thus, the claim matches the subject and setting of the footage, but a characterization of the exchange as an argument should not be taken to support those alleged remarks.

NewtralPolitics & government

Imagen del currículum de Irene Montero

Publisher’s rating: Engañoso

The review investigates whether Irene Montero had been “unable to get work beyond being a store cashier for a year.” It says her CV was publicly available through Podemos’s transparency portal and describes her education and work history as recorded there. Montero studied psychology from entering university in 2006, completed her degree in 2011, and then completed a master’s in educational psychology two years later. In 2013, she began doctoral studies with an FPU university-teacher-training grant; the review says that the grant required a contract with a university or training centre and that such doctoral programmes are intended to let students focus on research.

NewtralPolitics & government

PaJamás en la historia de España ninguna formación política ha aceptado un veto

Publisher’s rating: Verdad a medias

The claim concerned Pablo Iglesias’s statement that no political formation in Spain had ever accepted a veto. He made it while criticizing the PSOE after Pedro Sánchez had excluded him from a possible coalition government. The review distinguishes between national-level precedents and examples in regional politics; it says there were no national precedents, but that the absolute wording overlooked a Catalan case. After the September 2015 Catalan election, Junts pel Sí won 62 seats, six short of an absolute majority, and needed support from the CUP to secure the presidency of the Generalitat. The CUP made its support conditional on Artur Mas not being the candidate. Mas later sought investiture but received only the 62 votes of his own coalition. The review reports that Junts pel Sí then accepted the CUP’s veto and proposed Carles Puigdemont instead. The account says the agreement was announced on January 9, 2016, after Junts pel Sí accepted the condition; Puigdemont was subsequently designated president. This regional example contradicts the claim’s unqualified assertion that no Spanish political formation had ever accepted a veto, while leaving intact the narrower point that the review found no national-level precedent.

Pagella PoliticaPolitics & government

I dieci punti che Di Maio che ha letto dopo le consultazioni al Quirinale [...] sono tutti o quasi parte integrante del Contratto con la Lega.

Publisher’s rating: Vero

The claim concerns Giancarlo Giorgetti’s statement at a meeting in Rimini on 23 August: that all or nearly all of the ten priorities Luigi Di Maio had presented after consultations at the Quirinale were already part of the governing contract between the Lega and the Five Star Movement. The review checks that comparison against the agreement signed by Matteo Salvini and the M5S in May 2018, using the publisher’s “Traccia il Contratto” project to assess which of Di Maio’s ten objectives were already covered. The examples in the review show substantial overlap, but not an exact match in every detail. The contract called for reducing the number of parliamentarians, and its sections on family policy and disability addressed several elements of Di Maio’s proposed budget package; the review identifies emergency housing as an exception. On environmental policy, the contract addressed renewables, climate change and circular-economy measures, but did not use the phrase “Green New Deal” or mention drilling. The review also says the contract covered separating investment and commercial banking. The review identifies further omissions: it says the agreement did not provide for targeted measures for the South, emergency housing, or revision of motorway concessions. It therefore distinguishes between priorities that were already substantially represented in the contract and a small number that were not. Its conclusion is that Giorgetti’s “all or nearly all” formulation is supported, while acknowledging those exceptions.