"Duterte's enthusiastic supporters in the streets of Manila," reads the simplified Chinese caption of a protest video uploaded on Douyin on March 14, 2025 shared hundreds of times.
The clip repeats the same scene a few times with a voice-over in Mandarin that says "It is such a tragic joke that a fighter against narcotics was arrested by a so-called international court.
"As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, China should use this opportunity to bring down hostile forces that confuse right and wrong."
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Screenshots of the false post on Douyin and WeChat, captured on March 18, 2025
Duterte, the first Asian former head of state charged by the International Criminal Court (ICC), faces crimes against humanity charges over his years-long campaign against drug users and dealers that rights groups have said killed thousands (archived link).
His tenure as president was marked by a swing away from the nation's former colonial master, the United States, in favour of China as he set aside rivalry with Beijing in the South China Sea dispute to court Chinese businesses (archived link).
China warned the ICC against "politicisation" and "double standards" after the 79-year-old's arrest (archived link).
The video was also shared elsewhere on Douyin, Kuaishou, and WeChat.
Duterte's supporters have staged protests in the Philippines and abroad including in the ICC in The Hague demanding his release, but the clip actually shows an unrelated rally in Warsaw, the Polish capital (archived links here, here and here).
In the first few frames of the video, a deep-pink advertising billboard belonging to T-Mobile Poland can be seen (archived link).
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Screenshot comparison between the image taken from the false post showing an advertising billboard (left) and T-Mobile Poland's promotional image
Google Street View imagery taken in August 2021 on the al. Jana Pawła street in Warsaw shows several buildings and a bus stop seen in the false video (archived link).
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Screenshot comparison between false post (left) and Google Maps' Street View imagery with similarities highlighted by AFP
At the 10-second mark of the video, a flag with a red heart logo can also be seen -- the same shape on Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk's shirt at a rally on October 1, 2023 ahead of a key general election when he was the leader of the opposition.
Around a million people gathered at the rally in Warsaw to protest against Poland's conservative government on that day (archived link).
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Screenshot comparison between the false post (left) and an AFP photo showing Tusk at the rally on October 1, 2023
A white banner that reads "Idzie Targowica" -- meaning "Traitors from Targowica are marching" in Polish -- can be seen in the video at the same timestamp.
Polish online media niezalezna.pl published a picture showing the same banner in a report on the rally, saying it belonged to a group of counter-protesters (archived link).
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Screenshot comparison of the white banner seen in the video (left) and as published by Polish media
A Polish-speaking AFP journalist confirmed Tusk can be heard in the clip saying "this is a historic moment that will decide the future of Poland, the future of our children" and the crowds chanting "glory to you".
AFP debunked other false claims related to Duterte's arrest.