Viral photo with hashtag #TurkeyIsOurAnamy is Fake

Sophie Datishvili

On October 28, social networks in Georgia were blown up by the photo, saying that Georgian man was beaten to death in Turkey after he tried to steal a coat. This information was reposted thousands of time with hate speech towards the Turkish Nationals under the same hashtag #TurkeyIsOurAnamy. 

This is the English Translation of the text which accompanied the image everywhere. 

"Based to the reports, today, Georgian boy was beaten to death in Turkey, because that boy stole a coat. #Turkeyisouranamy !!! remember this!! The biggest enemy of our country is Turkey!!! They try to destroy our country!!! Share this post!!! Every Georgian should understand, what represents Turkey and what it wants from us!!

This information was spread in various Georgian news agencies immediately.

In order to check the authenticity of the image, we started to locate the place where it happened. By zooming on the banners and shop names, it appeared that the scene was from Istanbul, Turkey, Fatih district. We compared the image, with google map images and found that exact road where the body of the man lies.

We also tried to search Turkish or English information about the accident possibly happened to a Georgian, but Turkish media didn't report anything based tho these key words.

As previously mentioned, by zooming on the picture, we knew the names of the shops around. For further verification, we contacted to the manager of the Men's clothing shop nearby.

In the conversation with "Belfore House", it turned out a whole different story. They accident happened the day before. Unconscious man on the road was a guest from the hotel nearby. He came there 2 days before and, yesterday by unknown circumstances, he jumped from the balcony. Shop manager also added that the injured man who was still alive had psychological problems and he was staying there with his relative. At the final question about the nationality of a man, he said that the injured was Turkish.

The story about killed Georgian in Turkey seems to be another spark of disinformation in order to switch public focus from the actual problems, in the country where 20% of its territories is under occupation.


The story in Georgian was published by www.factmeter.net and by this blog (www.jorunalismania.blogspot.com)