ALTERED: This image of Oromo artists in military uniform is doctored
An image shared on Facebook claiming to show three Oromo artists in military uniform is ALTERED.
The post in Afaan Oromo and shared on Facebook on 9 September 2022, reads in part: “We have gone to provide national service on Free Service day on Pagume 4. Our country will never disintegrate.”
The post also advises users to follow the attached link for further information.
An image of three people in military uniform and holding weapons accompanies the post.
Pagume is the 13th month and has only five days, becoming six days after every four years, in a transition month from the old year to New Year in Ethiopia’s calendar. The Ethiopian government announced the fourth day of Pagume as “Service Day’” to encourage citizens to provide free service across the country.
The post refers to this free service day.
However, PesaCheck has found out that the image of the three Oromo artists attached to the post is doctored.
Google reverse image search results established that the original image is of Ethiopian soldiers in Mekelle, the capital of the Tigray region, in 2021.
The image was taken by Anadolu Agency photographer Minasse Wondimu Hailu on 7 March 2021. It shows Ethiopian soldiers on patrol in a street in Mekelle after the northern Ethiopian city was recaptured.
The original image has been digitally manipulated and the heads of three famous Oromo artists (from left to right) Taadele Gemechu, Jambo Jote, and Yosen Getahun added to it, to create the claim.
Moreover, the attached link does not contain information about the claimed service provided by the three artists. The link leads to an article advertising an application used for daily routine planning.
PesaCheck has investigated an image shared on Facebook claiming to show three Oromo artists in military uniform and finds it to be ALTERED.
This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms.
By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organizations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds.
Have you spotted what you think is fake news or false information on Facebook? Here’s how you can report. And, here’s more information on PesaCheck’s methodology for fact-checking questionable content.
This fact-check was written by a PesaCheck fact-checker based in Ethiopia (name withheld for security reasons) and edited by PesaCheck senior copy editor Cédrick Irakoze and acting chief copy editor Francis Mwaniki. The article was approved for publication by PesaCheck’s managing editor Doreen Wainainah.
PesaCheck is East Africa’s first public finance fact-checking initiative. It was co-founded by Catherine Gicheru and Justin Arenstein, and is being incubated by the continent’s largest civic technology and data journalism accelerator: Code for Africa. It seeks to help the public separate fact from fiction in public pronouncements about the numbers that shape our world, with a special emphasis on pronouncements about public finances that shape government’s delivery of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) public services, such as healthcare, rural development and access to water / sanitation. PesaCheck also tests the accuracy of media reportage. To find out more about the project, visit pesacheck.org.
PesaCheck is an initiative of Code for Africa, through its innovateAFRICA fund, with support from Deutsche Welle Akademie, in partnership with a coalition of local African media and other civic watchdog organizations.