A Facebook page with more than 16,600 followers on Apr 27, posted an image of a man holding high, a sign on which a text in Amharic reads, “We the extremist Muslims are the perpetrators in the Gondar conflict.”
The caption of the post says, “Swallow the truth!! The distance traveled to hit the church would not be profitable. Extremist Muslims you better stay down. The problem is created by extremists, not by the real Gondar Muslims and peaceful Gondar Christians.” There is also a link attached that leads to a YouTube Channel.
The post has been shared more than 250 times in less than 24 hours.
HaqCheck looked into the image and confirmed it is Altered.
On April 26 a conflict broke out in Gonder city, Amhara region, at the funeral of Sheik Kamal Legas, a prominent local Sheik in the city. According to reports coming out, a group of people reportedly attacked Muslim mourners, forbidding them to collect rocks for the Sheik’s graveyard from an Orthodox church compound located next to a mosque.
Desalegn Tasew, head of the Amhara Regional State Peace and Security Bureau said in a statement, “…The conflict that started between individuals with a different mission was outgrown and exacerbated into group conflict…”.
The Amhara Regional Islamic Affairs High Council said more than 20 people have been killed and more than 150 injured in clashes at the Sheik Elias Cemetery in Gondar, according to a report by BBC Amharic.
Following the incident, many Muslims have been protesting and asking for justice in different parts of the country. Most of the protestors were seen holding signs and slogans written on paper. The Facebook claim was posted taking advantage of this context.
However, HaqCheck did a reverse image search of the image and found the image to be altered. The original image was first posted on April 8 by a Facebook page of Mujib Amino, a Muslim public figure with over 268,600 Facebook followers. The text written on the sign reads “Our faith is our soul; Our education is our body!” The picture was taken during the time when there were protests against an alleged ban of Solat (prayer) in some schools in Addis Ababa.
HaqCheck also took a closer look at the image and observed the dissimilarity of the color grading between the text and the paper coupled with the mismatch of curvature between the text lines and the paper edges, which clearly hints at the possibility of the image’s alteration.
Due to the above reasons, HaqCheck rated the image in the Facebook post ALTERED.
