Recently, following a popular uprising of students and citizens that led to her ousting and subsequent refuge in India, a claim has circulated on social media platform Facebook stating that former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina ranks third among 173 prime ministers in a so-called list of honest and corruption-free leaders.
See such Facebook posts circulated with this claim here (archive), here (archive), and here (archive).
See Instagram posts shared with the same claim here (archive) and here (archive).
See a similar post shared on TikTok here.
Fact-check
Rumor Scanner team’s investigation found that the claim about Sheikh Hasina ranking third among 173 prime ministers in a so-called list of honest and corruption-free leaders is not true. In fact, this widely shared claim has been circulating on social media since a report was published in 2017 by online news portal Bangla Insider, citing a baseless organization named “Peoples and Politics.”
Specifically, on November 20, 2017, Bangla Insider published a report titled “Sheikh Hasina the 3rd Most Honest Government Head in the World”. The report cited a research organization called “Peoples and Politics” which claimed that then Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina ranked third among the world’s top five most honest government leaders. According to the report, Peoples and Politics analyzed the activities of heads of state and government from 173 countries to reach this conclusion. However, Rumor Scanner’s investigation found that no such research organization named “Peoples and Politics” exists. Bangla Insider published the report based on a completely baseless source. Since then, this information has repeatedly circulated in the media and on social platforms.
It is worth noting that when the same claim previously spread widely online, Rumor Scanner identified the information as false and published a fact-check report: Rumor Scanner Fact-Check Report.
