Accounts and pages on social media circulated a photo of activist Amer Sheikhani showing marks of a beating on his face, attached to a claim alleging that he had been assaulted, after it was published by the activist Mohammed al-Atrash.
The fact-checking team contacted activist Amer Sheikhani directly to establish the truth of the photo. Sheikhani denied what was being circulated and confirmed that the attached photo had been digitally edited to show marks of a beating on his face. He also sent the fact-checking team the original photo, explaining that it was taken while he was covering the Deir ez-Zor flood, during an assignment given to him by the Ministry of Information alongside the journalists Khaled al-Mukhtar and Abdul Hai al-Shami, at a time when most journalists were covering the Hajj season.
Why is this claim misleading?
Digitally edited content: The claim relied on an original photo that was digitally manipulated to add marks of a beating to the face of the activist, then republished in a context suggesting that he had been assaulted, in order to mislead public opinion.
