A photo of Cho Kuk, a minor third-party leader in South Korea, has been doctored to falsely depict him holding a banner calling for a boycott of Japanese imports. Posts with the doctored image have been circulated in Facebook groups supporting the sitting president Yoon Suk Yeol and said it showed Cho trying to drum up support for his party by stoking anti-Japanese sentiment. However, the original image showed him holding a sign urging voters to support his party at an election rally in April 2024.
“Kukki did not want to lose to the Democratic Party and tried to stir up anti-Japanese sentiment yesterday,” read the Korean-language post shared on Facebook on July 4. It also named the opposition party’s minor leader, Cho Kuk.
Cho, a former justice minister under former President Moon Jae-in who founded the Rebuilding Korea Party, appeared to hold a banner calling for a boycott of Japanese goods.
The same flag was widely used during Moon’s tenure, after South Korea and neighboring Japan suffered economic blows over a dispute over compensation for forced labor during the war.
Progressive South Koreans have long been wary of scaling up security cooperation with Japan to an alliance (archived link).
Other posts sharing the manipulated image were published in Facebook groups supporting incumbent President Yoon Suk Yeol, here, here and here.
Changed board
A reverse image search on Google turned up the original photo of Cho holding a different sign, which was published by Yonhap news agency on April 8 — just days before South Korea’s parliamentary elections (archived link).
The original sign Cho held featured several slogans supporting his party or criticizing Yoon’s government, including: “three years is too long” (referring to the president’s remaining term) and “my son and daughter, both in their 20s, also support Cho Kuk.”
Below is a screenshot comparing the edited image on Facebook (left) with the original photo taken by Yonhap news agency in April (right):
The Yonhap report said Cho held up the sign at a party meeting in the city of Gimpo, criticizing the ruling party’s governance and calling on voters to support his party.
AFP also found footage of the same meeting, which was broadcast live on April 8 by local broadcaster JTBC (archived link).
The exact moment corresponding to the Yonhap photo can be seen at 53 minutes and 55 seconds of the video, when Cho made a countdown gesture with his right hand.
Below is a screenshot of the photo Yonhap published (left) and the corresponding portion of JTBC’s footage from the same event (right):
Cho’s sign, and the other three signs he held up to the camera during the meeting, contained no reference to Japan or a boycott.
Footage of the same demonstration was also broadcast live by other news organizations, Ohmynews and Fact TV, both of which showed the original sign Cho was holding (archived links here and here).
