This photo shows a building in South Korea; it has been doctored to include Arabic writing
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on October 16, 2019 at 07:50
- 2 min read
- By AFP Singapore
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The doctored photo was published in this Facebook post on September 30, 2019. It has been shared more than 1,800 times.
Its caption states: “Islamic library located in South Korea.”
The words on the building, translated from Arabic to English, comes from the first line of the Shahada, one of the Five Pillars of Islam: “There is no god but God. Muhammad is the messenger of God.”
Below is a screenshot of the misleading post:
The same image was shared on Facebook here, here, here and here with a similar claim.
The claim is false. A reverse image search on Google found the original photo of a building in South Korea published here on the website for London-based design studio DaeWha Kang Design.
A lengthy description on the web page states in part: “The Rainbow Building is a mixed-use building in Paju Book City, South Korea. The simple block of stone and glass creates a bold visual statement with its simple lines and rich texture, standing out from the eclectic surrounding buildings. As the home of a publishing house intent on telling the stories of the unsung people of twentieth century Korea, the building’s key feature is the hundred-year stair, a glazed stairwell wrapping around a bookcase with one shelf for every year of the last century.
“The new Rainbow Publishing Headquarters has a gallery on the ground floor, office spaces on the middle levels, and a residence on the top floor.”
Below is a screenshot comparison of the manipulated photo in the misleading posts (L) and the original image on the DaeWha Kang Design website (R):
The Rainbow Publishing Headquarters is located here in Paju Book City, a publishing complex in the city of Paju.
The architect DaeWha Kang replied to an email from AFP on October 8, 2019, saying that the image in the misleading posts was “a photoshop of our photo of the real building.”
The owner of the building, Lee Hwan-Gu, who is also the secretary general of the Book City Culture Foundation in Paju, told AFP by email on October 10, 2019, that the photo manipulation was “deeply disconcerting”.
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