Violent protests against ousted South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol have rocked the capital Seoul after his short-lived declaration of martial law in December. But an image that appears to show a protest banner with an anti-Yoon message next to a call for the arrest of his main rival, Democratic Party opposition leader Lee Jae-myung, is being manipulated. Several news reports showed the original photo, which showed a banner with a different message.
“The expression may be crude, but this is the next task for the people. This is what our people and the legal system will do,” said a Korean-language Facebook post shared on December 15, 2024.
The post featured an image that appeared to show a protest banner that read: “Impeach uprising leader Yoon Suk Yeol. Arrest a four-time convict, Lee Jae-myung.”
Screenshot of the Facebook post, taken on December 19, 2024
Major protests against Yoon, with smaller demonstrations supporting him, have rocked Seoul since his short-lived martial law decree on December 3. The country’s parliament voted to suspend him from office on December 14 (archived link).
Yoon is also under investigation for charges of rebellion and abuse of power. The Constitutional Court has initiated proceedings against him and has approximately six months to determine whether his impeachment should be upheld (archived link).
Lee Jae-myung, leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, lost to Yoon in the 2022 election by the narrowest vote margin in South Korea’s electoral history. Analysts say he is the clear frontrunner for president.
National Election Commission records showed that Lee had three criminal convictions for which he was fined more than one million won ($690) – for assisting a news producer posing as a prosecutor during a telephone interview in 2003, and for drunk driving and damaging public property in 2004 (archived links here and here).
In November 2024, Lee was also given a suspended prison sentence for violating election laws. If upheld on appeal, Lee would be stripped of his parliamentary seat and barred from running for public office for the next five years (archived link).
Although “Impeach Rebellion Leader Yoon Suk Yeol” and “Arrest Lee Jae-myung” were slogans often chanted at rival rallies, it is highly unlikely that either side will call for both.
Similar posts sharing the image, allegedly showing a protest banner with both messages, were shared on social media site X and on South Korean online forums such as Arca.live, DC Inside and FM Korea.
Some social media users seemed to believe the image was real.
“I don’t understand what a contradictory idea this is,” one user wrote. “Those who call for the ouster of Yoon Suk Yeol and the beating up of Lee Jae-myung are the worst kind of people.”
Another said: “I hope that people, who may not be spotless, but are at least at an average level, will run for office,” referring to possible snap elections expected within eight months if the constitutional court confirms Yoon’s ouster.
Doctored image
A combination of reverse image searches and keywords on Google revealed that the original image had been circulating online since December 7 (archived link).
The banner in the original image has a different phrase than the modified image: “The National Stay-at-Home Coalition. Please let’s lie down. Do we really have to get up and leave the house?”
The photo was also featured in Korean-language news reports in Kyunghyang Shinmun and Chosun Ilbo (archived links here and here).
Reporting on mass protests ahead of an impeachment vote against Yoon outside parliament on December 7, Kyunghyang Shinmun reported that the banners with catchy, witty yet piercing messages indicated that “ordinary citizens had courageously stepped forward” to express their dissent.
Another photo of the same banner was published by Ohmynews, which interviewed its creator Ji Seung-ho (archived link). The 25-year-old told the local online news station that he normally preferred to stay at home and wanted to express his “anger” at the circumstances that forced him to leave the house and take to the streets via the banner.
Yoon escaped impeachment that day after lawmakers from his ruling party boycotted a vote (archived link).
Below is a screenshot comparison between the modified image shared on Facebook (left) and the original image published by Kyunghyang Shinmun (right):
Screenshot comparison between the modified image shared on Facebook (L) and the original image published by Kyunghyang Shinmun (R)
Yoon’s declaration of martial law has sparked a wave of misinformation that was debunked by AFP.
