Sanjeeb Phuyal is the Nepali Editor of Newschecker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He brings over a decade of experience writing and editing news. In his previous stint, he worked as online editor for The Kathmandu Post. With the growth of social media platforms—and the ever-growing competition amongst media outlets to churn out breaking news, he feels that fact-checking every piece of information has become more essential today than ever before.
Claim
Health Minister and Nepali Congress leader Pradeep Paudel held at Japan’s immigration and returned to Nepal.
Fact
2017 incident involving NC leader Paudel exaggerated and shared as recent.
A video claiming that Nepali Congress (NC) leader and Health Minister Pradeep Paudel has been returned from Japan’s immigration on the suspicion of his involvement in human trafficking is going viral on TikTok.
TikTok user @kaledai20551 posted a video carrying an image of Health Minister Pradeep Poudel with the text superimposed on the video reading, “Health Minister Pradeep Paudel sent back to Nepal after being held at Japan’s immigration for seven hours on suspicion of human trafficking. Where are the Gagan Thapas of Nepali congress, and how will go to ask for votes from the people in the local level elections.” A melancholic tune is played in the background.
The video posted on November 8 has garnered 4284 likes, 309 users have shared it and 547 people have commented until the time of publishing this article.
The archived version of the TikTok video can be seen here.
Newschecker found the claim to be misleading.
Fact Check /Verification
To check the veracity of the claim, Newschecker first took a keyframe from the viral video and ran a reverse search on Google. The search led us to a news article, dated September 17, 2017, published on Onlinekhabar. On checking the news, we found that NC leader Poudel was sent back to Nepal after enquiring for a few hours at the immigration of Haneda Airport in Tokyo. The photo carried in the viral video exactly matched the image carried in the viral video.
Further, we found another article titled, NC leader held at Japanese airport for seven hours, sent back to Nepal’ published on The Himalayan Times online. The news report dated, Sept 18, 2017, reported that Paudel was detained at Hanedo Airport of Japan for seven hours by Japanese immigration officials and sent back to Nepal.
However, none of the news reports mentioned the reason for not allowing Paudel to enter Japan as the suspicion of human trafficking.
Pradeep Paudel was appointed as the Minister for Health and Population in the current coalition government formed by Nepali Congress and CPN-UML earlier this year on July 15.
Thus, our findings clearly showed that a seven-year-old incident was exaggerated and shared on social media as recent.
Conclusion
No, Health Minister Pradeep Paudel was not returned from Japan on suspicion of human trafficking after he became the minister. The viral video has exaggerated an old incident and shared on social media as recent.
Result: False
Sources
Onlinekhabar.com, Sept 17, 2017
Himalayan Times, Sept 18, 2018
Kathmandu Post, July 15, 2024
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Sanjeeb Phuyal is the Nepali Editor of Newschecker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He brings over a decade of experience writing and editing news. In his previous stint, he worked as online editor for The Kathmandu Post. With the growth of social media platforms—and the ever-growing competition amongst media outlets to churn out breaking news, he feels that fact-checking every piece of information has become more essential today than ever before.
