Old image shows Uganda’s police spokesperson demonstrating catapult, not shooting at journalist

This article is more than one year old.
Published on March 15, 2022 at 12:08
Updated on March 15, 2022 at 14:05
2 min read
By Segun OLAKOYENIKAN, AFP Nigeria

A tweet sharing an image of a man in uniform holding a catapult claims that it shows Uganda’s “new” police spokesperson shooting at a journalist for asking an “irrelevant question”. However, the claim is false: the image shows a demonstration by Uganda’s national police spokesman Fred Enanga who was briefing reporters last year after officials seized a batch of imported catapults deemed a security risk. Enanga has been on the job since 2014.

Using social media monitoring tool CrowdTangle, AFP Fact Check found that the claim was first published on Twitter on March 12, 2022.

“Newly appointed Uganda police spokesman hits News reporter with a caterpult for asking irrelevant question (sic),” reads the tweet, which has been shared more than 9,000 times.

Screenshot taken on March 14, 2022, showing the false tweet

The author’s Twitter account shows it is located in South Africa. However, screenshots of the tweet have since circulated online in Nigeria and other African countries.

Some Twitter users commented that the claim was wrong, while others believed the man in the image actually attacked a journalist.

The claim, however, is false and the image has been used out of context.

Old photo

The logo of Kampala-based Uganda Radio Network (URN) is visible in the bottom right-hand corner of the photo. The combination of this clue and a reverse image search led AFP Fact Check to a report by the URN news agency.

“Fred Enanga showing how some of the recovered catapults are being used,” reads URN’s caption on a cropped version of the same image featured in the April 2021 report. It is about police investigations into the illegal importation of “factory-made catapults” into Uganda “to stir violence”.

Enanga is the current spokesman for Uganda’s national police force and there is no evidence to show his appointment was recent as the posts suggest. In fact, Enanga has been the country’s police spokesperson since April 2014.

Furthermore, the original version of the photo accompanied a police statement about the catapult investigation.

Screenshot showing the image on the website of Ugandan police

“The catapults are capable of firing metallic projectiles or bearings, thus posing serious danger to the safety and security of Ugandans,” read part of the statement, issued on April 12, 2021, by Enanga himself.

In addition, television reports of the press briefing were uploaded to YouTube by local broadcasters, including the Uganda Broadcasting Corporation and New Vision Television.

“You do like this and then you target somebody. So, you can see how dangerous this thing is,” Enanga says while pulling an empty slingshot. “It’s very dangerous.”

Police dismiss claim

Ugandan police have also dismissed the claim on Twitter as “fake news”. Their response followed a screenshot of a similar claim tweeted by popular Kenyan lawyer Ahmednasir Abdullahi whose caption read: “Our neighbours …” followed by laughter emojis.

Although Abdullahi has since deleted his tweet, AFP Fact Check found a version saved on archiving platform Wayback Machine.

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