Raskrinkavanje has already written about fake news which thematize alleged faking and staging of the events in Syria. For another similar story, there’s been a misuse of photos from a movie set for a film – which was produced by a Syrian State Institute for Film.
 The Ministry of Defence, just a few days after the United States of America, Great Britain and France bombed positions held under the command of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, following the usage of chemical weapons, reported that there’s been an increase in activity of Russian trolls for two thousand percent. Among the news shared on Facebook and Twitter by the accounts connected to the Russian state or Assad’s regime, there is a dominant narrative that the arena where chemical weapons were used, in Eastern Ghouta near Damascus, was staged and that the attack was fabricated. It was not long before the photos, which were added as alleged evidence for confirming staging of the attacks, began to circulate on fake media websites in Southern Slavic languages.Â
The website Gerila published a photo followed by an article which has already been ranked in the analysis done by Raskrinkavanje: “Fabricated story about CNN and a girl from Syria”. Since the article itself contains another utterly fake claim it deserves an individual analysis.Â
CNN, as one of the leading American media outlets, took a part in the fabrication of the fake news. The media shared horrific photos showing the consequences of the chemical weapons attacks. Of course, the photos are entirely fake since they show the same girl who has already been rescued from the aggressor Assad for three times.Â
The source of the photo used in this article is a Facebook account of an activist connected to the regime of Bashar al-Assad – Penelope Stafyla. In addition to the photos, Stafyla shared a text to contextualize them:
“The media industry of horror films of the White Helmets. A Hollywood production in Ghouta in order to accuse and demonise the Syrian Arab Army and Republic of killing children.”
However, Stafyla shared photos a month before the attack, on March 6, 2018, and Sputnik, among others, has reported this in English. Therefore, these photos can’t be connected to the chemical weapon attack against civilians in Ghouta.Â
In the meantime, photos were redistributed by an array of websites in Russian and English language, such as turcopolier.typepad.com, syrianfreepress.wordpress.com, and riafan.ru. All of them condemned the “White Helmets” for staging the attack in Eastern Ghouta.Â
The same photos were published almost two weeks earlier, on February 24, 2018, by an official Facebook account of the movie The Revolution Man. The photos were taken on a movie set for a film produced by Assad’s regime, that is the Syrian Ministry of Culture. Â
The translation of inscription from the clapperboard on the photo is the following:
The Public Institute for Film
Scene 41
Shot 1
Take 3
Director: Najdat Aznour
Photos were indeed from Syria and they were taken in 2018. However, these photos were taken on a movie set, and they were not intended to fake victims of the attack. Unfortunately, like this example shows, death and lie go hand in hand. So, we rank the claim published by the website Gerila as fake news.Â
(Raskrinkavanje.ba)
