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Just as a heated debate was raging across social media over the President and his entourage walking along a road that had been sprinkled with turmeric-coloured water shortly before the Kandy Esala Perahera, a different kind of claim began spreading fast. It alleged that during former President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s era, a group of Russian dancers performed in front of the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic as part of a Night Race event held in Kandy. Below are the posts that carried it.
Social Media Posts:
Both photographs used in the posts show the Kandy Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic in the background, with several foreign women seen dancing in front of it.
These posts circulated widely, and we found they had also been shared on several occasions as far back as 12 years ago, in 2014, as shown below.
Since even a cursory glance suggested this was an edited image, we set out to trace its origins as follows.
Fact Check:
The Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic in Kandy, the foremost sacred site for Buddhists, is an extremely revered and heavily guarded zone. Every visitor, local or foreign, is required to dress modestly, keeping the body covered. Had a dance of this kind genuinely been allowed in front of such a sacred site, it would certainly have caused intense controversy, and mainstream media and other credible official sources would inevitably have reported it.
We therefore ran keyword searches to check whether such an event had really taken place in front of the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic. The searches made clear that no mainstream media outlet or credible official source had ever reported any such incident.
The original photos came from a large open-air party held after the 2012 Colombo Night Race (CNR)
We ran the photographs used in the posts through a reverse image search. This revealed that the originals were taken at a large open-air party held after the conclusion of the 2012 Colombo Night Race (CNR).
lankanstyle.blogspot | Archived srienews | Archived
Fake images made by editing the real 2012 Colombo Night Race photo and inserting the Temple of the Tooth into the background
A comparison of the original 2012 Colombo Night Race photos and the viral versions is shown below.
The backgrounds clearly differ from one another. The original photos show no Kandy Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic behind the dancers; they simply depict an open-air party scene. FB Gallery
Videos of the 2012 Colombo Night Race confirm the same scenes
Several videos posted on social media on December 18, 2012, showed Russian women dancing at the Colombo Night Race. The same women seen in the photographs above can also be identified in that footage.
More footage of the same Russian women dancing was also shared on social media back in 2012, all of it labelled as the 2012 Colombo Night Race. Those videos are available here, here and here.
Background: the Night Races (2011 – 2013) held during Mahinda Rajapaksa’s administration
During Mahinda Rajapaksa’s second presidential term, a series of night-time motor racing events were held in Colombo and Kandy, with several streets temporarily closed for the occasion. These races also drew heavy political controversy at the time.
Colombo: The Colombo Night Race was first held in December 2011, followed by a second edition on December 14–15, 2012, and a third on December 14–15, 2013, centred on Colombo Fort and Galle Face, the last of these featuring Sri Lanka’s first-ever F1 car appearance. The main sponsor was the Carlton Motor Sports Club. The events raised debate over spectator safety on narrow city streets, road damage, tax revenue lost to the municipal council, and transparency.
Kandy: Similar night races (Kandy Speed @ Night) were also held in Kandy, a first edition in 2011, a second in 2012, and a third scheduled for May 17–18, 2013, which was postponed to late June amid protests. The organising involved Kandy Mayor Lohan Ratwatte, MP Dilum Amunugama and Namal Rajapaksa.
The protests centred mainly on damage to the sacred city’s dignity, allegations that the race route ran along the very road in front of the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic used by the Esala Perahera, disruption to the public and the sale of liquor. The Malwatte and Asgiriya Mahanayake theras also petitioned President Rajapaksa over the matter.
Even so, we found no report of any event featuring dancers or of any related protest at the Kandy race.
We also examined old videos of the Kandy night races shared on social media at the time. Those videos are here, here and here. None of them show any such performance by dancers.
videos and reports related to Kandy Night Races: BBC News Sinhala video · Sunday Times report
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Conclusion:
Our fact-check shows that the photographs and posts claiming Russian women performed a semi-nude dance in front of the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic are fabricated.
They were created by editing photographs from an open-air party held after the 2012 Colombo Night Race and inserting a view of the Kandy Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic into the background, then circulating the misleading images on social media.
Night races were indeed held in the city of Kandy during Mahinda Rajapaksa’s presidency, and they drew strong protest at the time. But no open-air show like the one with Russian women dancing that followed the Colombo Night Race was ever held in Kandy.
Original Sinhala article: රාජපක්ෂ පාලන සමයේ, දළදා මාළිගාව ඉදිරිපිට රුසියානු නර්තන ශිල්පිනියන් රැඟු අයුරු කියන ඡායාරූපයේ ඇත්ත කතාව!
Title: Russian Dancers at Kandy’s Temple of the Tooth: The Viral Photo Is Digitally Altered
Fact Check By: Fact Crescendo Team
Result: Altered
