Old photo falsely shared as picketers at South Korea politician's campaign office in 2024
- Published on April 2, 2024 at 03:12
- 3 min read
- By SHIM Kyu-Seok, AFP South Korea
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"And yet they still vote for her?" reads a Korean-language Facebook post shared on March 26.
The photo shows protesters outside a building which displays a campaign billboard for Na Kyung-won, a lawmaker from South Korea's ruling People Power Party who is running for a seat in the April 10 parliamentary elections (archived link).
The demonstrators hold signs to spell out the message "[Na] takes Abe's side on everything".
The jibe appears to refer to accusations of pro-Japan bias hurled at Na since she attended a ceremony in 2004 to celebrate the formation of the Japanese self-defence forces (archived link).
South Korean relations have historically been strained with Japan, the country's former colonial ruler.
Text superimposed on the photo says it shows "the recent situation in front of Na Kyung-won's campaign office".
The photo was shared in similar Facebook posts here and here, and on South Korean forum SLR Club ahead of the elections.
However, the protest happened before elections in 2020, not 2024.
2020 photo
A Google reverse image search found the photo published in an article by the Seoul Economic Daily newspaper on April 14, 2020, a day before legislative elections (archived link).
The photo is credited to Na's official Facebook page.
However, a search by AFP in March 2024 did not find the photo on her Facebook page.
According to the report, a left-wing students' organisation protested in front of Na's campaign office in Seoul's Dongjak district, and police subsequently launched a probe on the group for allegedly obstructing her campaign activities.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the photo shared in false posts (left) and the photo published in 2020 by the Seoul Economic Daily (right):
The photo was published in various news reports about the protest in 2020, including here and here (archived links here and here).
Na posted a video on her Naver Blog page on March 21, 2020, in which she criticised the demonstrators (archived link).
"As you know, a group calling itself the Korean University Progressive Union came here yesterday for a protest," she said.
"They called for an end to pro-Japanese influences and attacked me as a pro-Japan lawmaker, holding up signs that said I 'take sides with Abe on everything'."
Na lost her re-election bid in the 2020 ballot (archived link).
Furthermore, Na's campaign office for the 2024 election is not the building seen in the video.
Since the 2020 election, she moved her campaign office to a different building, also located in Seoul's Dongjak district (archived link).
Street images of her 2020 campaign office from March 2024 show it no longer shows the campaign banner seen in the video.
Below is a screenshot comparison of Na's campaign office seen in the 2020 video (left), the same building on Naver Map in March 2024 (centre) and Na's campaign office for the 2024 election (right):
Na was previously targeted with a doctored photo appearing to show her with her hand around Abe's arm.
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