Picture of protest calling for arrest of S.Korea president altered to add Chinese flag

Published on January 10, 2025 at 10:10
3 min read
By SHIM Kyu-Seok, AFP South Korea

Thousands of rival South Korean protesters have been rallying in the capital Seoul as impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol continued to resist arrest following his bungled martial law decree. Pro-Yoon social media accounts have repeatedly shared an image they falsely claimed showed a Chinese flag at a rally calling for his arrest and detention. The posts baselessly alleged the political opposition was in cahoots with Beijing, but the image was doctored and did not originally show a Chinese flag.

The claim was shared on Facebook on January 7, 2025 in a post which read: "Evidence that pro-impeachment rallies are manufactured by China. Will they deny it even with this photo?"

The image appears to show a Chinese flag on a banner that reads: "Immediately arrest and detain Yoon, the head of the insurrection."

Screenshot of the false claim shared on Facebook captured on January 9

South Korean investigators on January 9 were gearing up for a second arrest attempt targeting Yoon, days after an earlier attempt to detain the sitting president was foiled by his bodyguards (archived link).

Yoon was impeached following his bungled December 3, 2024 martial law decree, which plunged South Korea into its worst political crisis in decades.

The same image and claim were shared in multiple Facebook groups supporting conservative South Korean politicians, including here, here and here.

Comments left in the false posts indicated some users were misled to believe the image was genuine.

"The real enemy is here within, implanted by outside forces," one user wrote.

"Now they're operating out in the open," another wrote.

Doctored image

A reverse image search on Google, however, found the original image published on Hello Archive -- an online platform from Yonhap news agency -- on January 4 (archived link).

The banner in the original photo reads, "Immediately arrest and detain Yoon Suk Yeol, the head of the insurrection," with no sign of a Chinese flag.

Below is a screenshot comparison between the doctored image (left) and the original published by Yonhap news agency (right):

Screenshot comparison between the doctored image (left) and the original published by Yonhap news agency (right)

The same banner was also photographed from other angles by news organisations including Hankyoreh and OhMyNews (archived links here and here).

The banner could also be seen from a distance at the 1:20:21 mark in footage published live by a KBS news report on January 4 (archived link).

Below is a screenshot of the KBS video with the banner highlighted:

Screenshot of the KBS video with the banner highlighted

AFP found no official reports about a Chinese flag seen in rallies in favour of Yoon's removal as of January 9, 2025.

China's embassy in South Korea told its citizens in a notice on January 5 not to take part in any political activities (archived link).

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