"Huge protest! The uprising aims to oust the Turkish leader from power. Stocks fell and the currency weakened," reads the Thai-language post on Blockdit, a social media platform in Thailand, on March 20.
The post continues: "Russian media reported that millions of Turkish citizens gathered at a massive protest. Some of them burned houses and buildings, resisted authorities and demanded the resignation of Turkish President Erdogan after he ordered the arrest of his political rival Istanbul Mayor Imamoglu."
The accompanying 15-second clip is a compilation of petrol bombs being thrown, while a watermark reading "Cihan" and the logo of Russian state broadcaster RT can be seen on the top right corner.
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Screenshot of the false Blockdit post, taken March 25, 2025
The same video was shared on X in Thai-language posts here and here, as well as in English and Arabic posts, all linking it to ongoing protests in Turkey over the arrest of opposition mayor Ekrem Imamoglu on March 19 as part of a graft and "terror" probe (archived link).
The Istanbul mayor is Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's main political rival and his detention came just days before the party was expected to name him as its candidate for the 2028 presidential election.
Vast crowds have hit the streets daily, defying a protest ban in Istanbul and other big cities and sparking street battles with riot police in Turkey's worst unrest in years (archived link).
But the footage is more than a decade old.
2014 footage
Though it features an RT logo, AFP found no record of the Russian state media publishing the footage.
However, reverse image search using one of the video’s keyframes led to higher quality footage published on YouTube on April 19, 2014 by the now-defunct Turkish media Cihan News Agency (archived links here and here).
The video's title and description say that it shows Molotov cocktails thrown by demonstrators in the streets of Okmeydani, a neighbourhood in Istanbul.
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Screenshot comparison of the false post (left) and the YouTube video by Cihan News Agency (right)
CNN Turk and major Turkish broadcasting channels like Samanyolu Haber and Hurriyet also reported the same event and shared similar clips (archived links here, here and here).
According to the Hurriyet report, the late-night protest took place on Mithatpasa Street in Okmeydani. Masked individuals blocked the road with garbage bins while some threw Molotov cocktails, which prompted a police response, the report said.
AFP previously debunked misinformation linking to the Turkey protest after Imamoglu's arrest here.