Fabricated Newspaper Clipping Claims That US Ambassador Sponsors AKD`s US Tour!

US Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Julie Chung, is an active figure and has regularly expressed views of the US government on crucial social and political matters related to Sri Lanka. As a result, she has often become a victim of false propaganda as well.

We recently came across social media posts stating that Ms. Julie Chung is fully sponsoring the US tour of one of Sri Lanka`s leftist political leaders, Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD), including food and lodging. The claims were made via a purported newspaper clipping as seen below.

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These claims were viral among social media users.

We decided to do a fact-check on this.

Fact Check

Credibility of the Sources: It's essential to assess the credibility of the sources making the claim. The purported claim appearance and font style all resemble the “මව්බිම” newspaper hence we checked the last few editions of this newspaper yet were unable to find any such news item.

Then we contacted the ‘Mawbima’ editorial, which denied publication of such a news item and stated that the viral image was a fabricated post using the brand theme of Mawbima.

US Embassy: We looked at any official statements from the US Embassy for any statement related to AKD’s US visit. However, we didn’t come across any such statement and a spokesperson for the US Embassy in Colombo denied these rumors.

NPP Statement: The NPP political party also rejected these claims of US embassy involvement in sponsoring AKD’s tour which has several meetings planned from 28^th October to 5^th November targeting major cities in the US. Anura Kumara Dissanayake landed at the Los Angeles International Airport on 27^th October.

However, a week before,the US ambassador, Julie Chung met the NPP leadership at the J.V.P. head office in Pelawatta and discussed several topics including global humanitarian concerns over the war in Gaza. Here is an instance when the US Ambassador met the NPP leadership in 2022.

The NPP leader visited a few other countries during the past few months including Australia and South Korea, which were also subjected to misinformation drives.

Also Read: අනුර කුමාරගේ කොරියන් සංචාරය හා සබැඳි නොමගයවනසුලු සමාජ ජාලා සටහන්!

Social media is often a platform where false information and rumors can spread easily. In this case, the claim is only present on social media and lacks credible sources to support it.

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