Photos of S.Korean academic misrepresented as top justice visiting North

Published on March 13, 2025 at 11:10
4 min read
By SHIM Kyu-Seok, AFP South Korea

As South Korea's Constitutional Court nears a verdict on President Yoon Suk Yeol's impeachment, social media posts have repeatedly shared a photo collage they falsely claim depicts Justice Moon Hyung-bae visiting North Korea. But the man in the pictures is South Korean academic and politician Kim Geun-shik at a summit in Pyongyang in 2007.

"Moon, the head of the Constitutional Court, is a pro-North centrepiece who visited the North and fell for its honey trap," reads a Korean-language Facebook post published March 9, 2025.

It includes a collage showing a man meeting former North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and posing for a photo with a woman wearing a dress typically worn on formal occasions in the North.

Text above the images claims they show Moon, whom the post accuses of being a "spy" who got "caught in North Korea's honey trap".

Screenshot of the false post on Facebook captured March 12, 2025

Pro-Yoon social media users widely shared the same collage and claim on Facebook.

Moon is one of eight judges adjudicating whether to remove impeached President Yoon from office due to his failed imposition of martial law in December 2024. A verdict is expected in mid-March (archived link).

The Facebook posts say Moon -- a frequent disinformation target -- visited the North alongside South Korean actor Moon Sung-geun, a liberal activist close to opposition politicians (archived link).

The image in the bottom-right of the collage shows a genuine profile photo of the judge alongside comments he supposedly wrote on social media (archived link).

However, the rest of the pictures feature a different person.

Mistaken identity

Reverse image searches on Google show the photos depict Kim Geun-shik, a professor of North Korean studies at the Kyungnam University Institute for Far Eastern Studies and a politician for the ruling People Power Party (archived link).

He told AFP on March 11 that the photos in the collage "indeed do show myself visiting Pyongyang" and that the claims targeting Moon are "fake news."

Kim also refuted the claims in a March 12 Facebook post, saying the photos feature him "during the 2007 inter-Korean summit" and that he became aware of the false posts after AFP's inquiry (archived link).

Kim visited North Korea's capital as part of a South Korean government entourage for a summit between Kim Jong Il and then-South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun from October 2-4, 2007 (archived link).

A reverse image search on Google using the bottom-left photo found Kim Geun-shik posted it October 19, 2007 on an online forum (archived link).

Screenshot of a forum post Kim published in October 2007

A separate keyword search on Google found the top-left images stem from a Chosun Ilbo interview with Kim in February 2022 and show him shaking hands with the North's former leader (archived link).

Screenshot of images published in a Chosun Ilbo report in February 2022

The top-right photo shows Kim giving a short bow to Kim Jong Il as they toast wine glasses during a reception at the summit, as seen in a set of photos from the Roh Moo-hyun presidential archives (archived link).

Screenshot of a photo from the Roh Moo-hyun presidential archives

The page lists Kim Geun-shik as one of the people in the photos, all taken at a reception hall in Pyongyang -- but it does not mention Moon Hyung-bae.

AFP previously debunked doctored images claimed to show Moon sharing child pornography and a fake news report on the allegations, as well as an altered image showing him delivering a speech in front of a Chinese flag.

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