Doctored image shared in posts about 'genuine statue of former South Korean leader'
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on April 13, 2023 at 10:40
- 5 min read
- By SHIM Kyu-Seok, AFP South Korea
Copyright © AFP 2017-2024. Any commercial use of this content requires a subscription. Click here to find out more.
"Statue of Kim Dae-jung in Gwangju," reads the Korean-language claim shared here on Facebook on April 7, 2023.
The claim was accompanied by an image that appears to show a group of schoolchildren bowing in the direction of a bronze statue.
Red text superimposed at the top of the image reads: "Kim Dae-jung of the People's Republic of Jeolla," an apparent jibe that pokes fun at South Korea's southwestern region of Jeolla by likening it to the official name for North Korea, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Gwangju is a major metropolitan hub in the Jeolla region, where a pro-democracy uprising was staged in May 1980 in defiance against the military junta that had seized control of the country months earlier.
Kim Dae-jung, a prominent opposition leader at the time, was arrested on flimsy charges that he instigated the protests and remained under government surveillance until 1987 when he was granted political restitution.
Kim, who was elected president in 1997, pursued a policy of engagement towards North Korea, arranging the first-ever summit between the two countries in 2000. However, critics have said that Kim's conciliatory approach gave North Korea the opportunity to bolster its nuclear arsenal and become a greater threat.
The same doctored image was shared alongside a similar claim on Facebook; and on the South Korean online forum Naver Band here and here.
Comments on the misleading posts suggested some users were misled by the claim.
"Even in his death, this Commie is a hero in Jeolla province," one user wrote.
"No doubt Gwangju would put up a statue that looks just like Kim Il Sung's," wrote another, referring to North Korea's founding leader.
But the image has been digitally doctored.
A spokesperson for the Kim Dae-jung Foundation, which oversees memorials to the late president across the country, told AFP the organisation had "never erected such a statue nor ever heard of such a structure" in Gwangju.
North Korean statue
A reverse image search on Google found the corresponding image -- in a higher resolution -- published here on Twitter in February, 2023.
A closer analysis of the image found that the body of the statue and the building in the background match with the statue of former North Korean leader Kim Il Sung on Mansu Hill in front of the Korean Revolution Museum.
Photos of the statue in North Korea taken by AFP photographers can be seen here and here.
The statue was first erected at the site in 1972 on the occasion of Kim Il Sung's 60th birthday. In 2011, Kim Il Sung's son -- subsequent leader Kim Jong-il -- died and was succeeded by his son Kim Jong-un, who created a second statue on Mansu Hill, bearing the likeness of his father, next to Kim Il Sung's.
An AFP photographer took a photo of the two statues on Mansu Hill in 2022.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the doctored image shared in the misleading posts (left) and an AFP photo of Kim Il Sung's statue on Mansu Hill from 2005 (right):
Kim Dae-jung bust
An online search found the head section of the doctored image corresponds to a bust of the former president located in Gwangju’s Kimdaejung Convention Center.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the doctored image showing the statue's head (left) and a photo of Kim Dae-jung's bust located at the Kimdaejung Convention Center posted on Doopedia, a South Korean online encyclopedia (right):
Other photos of the bust can be seen here on Gwangju city's official blog, and here on the convention center’s official website.
Schoolchildren photo
A separate reverse image search on Google found the image of the schoolchildren bowing in the doctored photo corresponds with a photo published on August 21, 2009, by Yonhap News Agency, three days after Kim Dae-jung’s death.
The original image's caption reads: "Children from the Seakdong kindergarten in Mokpo pay their respects at a memorial altar for late former President Kim Dae-jung set up at the Yun Seondo Hall in the South Jeolla Provincial Office, where they placed letters written to the late leader."
Below is a screenshot comparison of a section of the doctored image (left) and the original image published by Yonhap News in August 2009 (right):
Is there content that you would like AFP to fact-check? Get in touch.
Contact us
