The stumbling block for men’s shooting is the former leader of Lebanon, not Pakistani PM
Old footage of former Lebanese President Michel Aoun tripping over a foreign summit surfaced in social media posts that mistakenly identified him as Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. The clip has appeared in several reports on this incident in March 2017.
On March 27, the Urdu Language Facebook post read: “Shehbaz Sharif felt dizzy during the meeting.”
It includes clips of a man facing a bunch of VIPs, some of whom are anxious to check him out.
Screenshot taken on a fake Facebook post on April 18
Sharif’s critics also shared clips from Tiktok and Instagram, claiming he was the fallen man, although no official reports of such incidents occurred.
Reverse image search on Google using keyframes in clips found that it was a longer video posted on Facebook on March 29, 2017 (archive link).
The title of the post said: “Lebanese President Michel Aoun stumbling at the Arab League summit today.”
Screenshot comparison between fake posts (L) and Middle Eastern Eye video
News outlets such as Turkey’s Anadolu agency and the Daily Mail also published reports on Aoun at the 22-member Arab League meeting in Jordan in March 2017 (archived here and here).
Pakistan was not a member of the Arab League, and Sharif was not the prime minister at that time. He first became Pakistan’s leader in April 2022 and was re-elected after the February 2024 general election (archived here and here).
AFP debunked misinformation about Sharif here and here.
