No, the person in the video is not Deputy Minister M.M. Mohamed Muneer

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A Muslim, M.M. Mohamed Munir, was appointed as the new Deputy Minister, and with that, several social media posts are being spread to incite racism. This is a fact-check investigation we conducted regarding a specific video.

Social Media Posts :

A video circulated, stating, “Congratulations to the newly appointed Deputy Minister of Buddhist and Cultural Affairs, Mr. Mohamed Munir!” implying that the person in the video was indeed the Deputy Minister, Mohamed Munir.

Facebook 

Several videos were shared among users on the same theme.

Another video was circulated stating that the National People’s Power government is trying to hurt the hearts of the Sinhalese and Buddhists by giving a ministry related to religious affairs to a person who was active in the ‘Aragalaya’ three years ago, to oust President Gotabhaya, and who spoke out about President Gotabhaya as “Gota is a fool, Gota’s family are fools” (‘ගෝඨා ගොබ්බයා ගෝඨගේ ෆැමිලි ගොබ්බයා’).

Thus, we did a fact-check regarding this video.

Fact Check :

Mohamed Mulaffar Mohamed Munir was recently appointed as the Deputy Minister of Religious and Cultural Affairs in the first cabinet reshuffle of the current government.

We investigated the identity of the person appearing on the above social media post, who the social media post claims as the Deputy Minister.

We found that the video circulating on social media, under the description “Go Home in Ismath Moulavi Style” was posted in April 2022, during the ‘Aragalaya’.

Accordingly, the video clip was taken during the struggle to force the former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to step down from the Presidency, while here is a video containing photographs of Ismat Moulavi taken from other angles that were published at the time. 

Additionally, Ismat Moulavi was actively involved in the struggle during this time, as evident in the following references: here, here, and here. Another video here. You can refer to more instances here, here, here, and here.

Posts and videos related to Ismat Moulavi were also shared on Facebook such as this, this, and this.

However, by observing photogrpahs it is clear that this person is not Deputy Minister Mohamed Mulaffar Mohamed Munir.

FB

Below is a close-up comparison of ‘Ismat Maulavi’ and the Deputy Minister.

Deputy Minister’s Media Coordinator

We also inquired with the Deputy Minister’s Media Coordinator regarding this, and he stated that the person in the above social media video is not Deputy Minister M.M. Mohamed Munir.

Active members during the ‘Aragalaya’

We also inquired from several people who were active during the Aragalaya about the identity of the person in the above video, and they confirmed that the person in the above video is a person named ‘Ismat Moulavi’, and that he was a popular figure at that time.

They also said that Danish Ali and Ismat Moulavi were arrested by the police at one point during the Aragalaya and were granted bail through the intervention of lawyers. The lawyers’ comments on the matter are here.

We attempted to contact Ismat Moulavi by phone, but were unsuccessful. We would like to update this news article with his response as soon as we can contact him.

Furthermore, as indicated in the above social media posts, Mr Mohamed Munir was not appointed as the Deputy Minister of Buddhist and Cultural Affairs. However, he was was appointed only as the Deputy Minister of Religious and Cultural Affairs.

The Deputy Minister for Buddhist Affairs is Deputy Minister Gamagedara Dissanayake.

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Conclusion :

Our investigation shows that the video circulating on social media purporting that the newly appointed Deputy Minister M.M. Mohamed Munir was active during the ‘Aragalaya’ is not the Deputy Minister but a person named ‘Ismat Moulavi’.