This image has been doctored -- it does not show a flash mob for late Indonesian president Baharuddin Jusuf Habibie
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on September 23, 2019 at 06:00
- Updated on September 23, 2019 at 13:58
- 8 min read
- By AFP Indonesia
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The image was published in this Facebook post on September 13, 2019.
It has been shared more than 1,900 times.
It shows students performing a flash mob to display the image of former Indonesian president Baharuddin Jusuf Habibie.
Below is a screenshot of the misleading Facebook post:
The photo’s Indonesian-language caption translates to English as: “What the students at the University of Muhammadiyah Malang @ummcampus has done is extraordinarily creative as a farewell gesture to a figure who has made me proud to be part of Indonesia.
“Goodbye Mr. Habibie, fly to the house of Allah where your beloved is waiting for you…to Allah we belong and to Him we shall return. Photo by @nasvian.”
Habibie died aged 83 on September 11, 2019, after suffering from heart failure. Here is an AFP story about his death.
The image was also published here, here, here and here with a similar claim.
The claim is false; the image has been doctored to show an image of Habibie.
A reverse image search on Google for the doctored photo found photos of a flash mob held by University of Malang Muhammadiyah (UMM) students in September 2018. The university posted this photo on September 2, 2018, on its official Instagram account.
The image published in the university’s Instagram post is identical with the misleading Facebook image except that the students form the words “STUDENTS TODAY”, instead of Habibie’s image.
The post’s Indonesian language caption translates to English as: “UMM’s new students 2018 turn into Students Today!
“RedJacketsMob who is the coolest?”
Below is a screenshot comparing the doctored image (L) and the university’s Instagram photo (R):
On its website, UMM said 7,500 new students participated in the event that was held on September 2, 2018.
The university also published a video of the flash mob activity in this September 2, 2018, post on its official YouTube channel.
The video’s Indonesian language title translates to English as: “The University of Muhammadiyah Malang’s Student Orientation 2018 | Flashmob.”
The video shows various formations performed by the students, but they do not create an image of Habibie. The formations were posted on the university’s Instagram account, as seen in the screengrabs below:
The Habibie image used in the misleading post corresponds with this photo published by Indonesian news site Republika on February 13, 2017.
AFP traced the social media account of @nasvian, the person credited in the misleading photo, and found his Instagram account here.
He uploaded the image on this September 11, 2019, post where he made it clear that he “borrowed” the university’s flash mob photo to pay tribute to Habibie.
The Instagram post’s Indonesian language caption translates to English as: “Allow me to borrow students at @ummcampus through the concept of @mr.jamz28 to say goodbye to a figure who had made me proud to be part of Indonesia..
Goodbye Mr. Habibie, fly to the house of Allah where your beloved is waiting for you..to Allah we belong and to Him we shall return..”
According to the university’s page, Moch. Fuad Nasvian is a lecturer at UMM.
Nasvian told AFP by Instagram message on September 19, 2019, that the image was a combination of UMM’s Instagram photo and the Republika picture.
“It is very unfortunate that there are people who use my work to mislead facts for other purposes,” he said.
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