An untruthful video full of invectives against military policemen and the defence minister has emerged on social media, its author has apologised and joined the fight against disinformation

The Ministry of Defence warns of an untruthful video by Filip Pavlík, which has been circulating on social media since 12 July 2021 with the number of social shares at about 1,500.

The author of this video described the incident where military policemen did not allow his friend, an ex-serviceman, to enter the Ministry of Defence. He reportedly wanted to go to the dentist's at the MOD Clinic. His friend was allegedly denied entry to the MOD, because he failed to produce either a certificate of vaccination or a negative test result.

However, the effort to cause something of a sensation due to the alleged thwarting of an ex-serviceman's visit to the dentist's at the MOD did not work – after establishing the circumstances, it is clear the incident has never happened. Recently, the author of the video has deleted it and written a letter of apology to the Military Police. Paradoxically, he has openly admitted he did not want to spread unverified information.

Commenting on the case, Director of the Military Police Col Valentín Cebo said: “Where suspicion arises that a member of the Armed Forces has been denied medical treatment, it is our duty to investigate the circumstances. We also check all the claims the majority of which often turn out to be false. Most importantly, spreading disinformation is addressed by the legal framework of which such individuals may not be aware. These are unpleasant situations where crying in front of military policemen does not help, because we always act by law.”

On the fake video, Defence Minister Jaroslav Naď said: “This video is a demonstration of the effort to generate a strong emotive reaction prompted by an alleged injustice being perpetrated on a suffering person, while at the same time being a display cabinet of strong assertions and invectives against military policemen, me, and as is often the case with these contributions, a reference was also made to the President. I am humanely sorry there is a lot of biased videos on social network sites. They provide a vast space for influencing the pubic opinion. However, it is not right if one can write anything without making a truthful statement.” Due to the massive number of social shares, the Minister appeals to the pubic to handle information in a responsible manner and to check the assertions and their sources.

The absurdity of the video is multiplied by the fact that the author of the video, who profiles himself as an experienced serviceman, a military professional, a special forces operative, a war veteran with years of service to his country under his belt and one of the founders of 5 Special Forces Regiment, has never been a serviceman.