- UN envoy Maleeha Lodhi has been criticized for sharing a photo from Gaza to highlight Indian oppression in Kashmir.
- The stunt comes just weeks after the Deputy Minister of Turkey shared fake photos on Twitter.
- NGOs have said that such images are making their jobs difficult during times of conflict.
- Meanwhile, the spread of fake photos has often shown to benefit oppressive regimes rather than the oppressed.
Pakistan's U.N. envoy Maleeha Lodhi has come under fire for using a picture from Gaza to demonstrate Indian actions in Kashmir at the United Nations in New York.
The diplomat was responding to allegations from the Indian external affairs minister, which branded the country, "a “pre-eminent export factory for terror”.
Lodhi displayed a photo of an injured woman to showcase “Indian violence in Jammu and Kashmir”.
However, it later emerged that the photograph was in fact of 17-year-old Rawya Abu Jom, who was injured during Israeli airstrikes in Gaza during the 2014 war.
The gaffe drew mocking commentary in the Indian Press while activists in Pakistan said that the mistake did little to change the reality of India's abuses in the disputed province.
For many, Lodhi's mix-up highlighted the issue of fake photos being used to, mistakenly or otherwise, to further a political cause.
Earlier this month, Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister came under fire for tweeting a string of images purporting to show violence against Myanmar's Rohingya community.
While few would argue that the crisis facing the persecuted minority group is real. The images in question were fake and had instead been taken in locations as diverse as Rwanda, Indonesia, and Nepal.
The images stem from a wider campaign on Turkish social media, which NGOs claim is actually hindering their work in helping the victims of the brutal oppression dished out by the Burmese state.
During last year's heartbreaking siege of Syria's Aleppo a number of fake images also gained traction online.
One snap of a girl supposedly running away while surrounded by dead corpses was in fact taken from a Lebanese music video.
Meanwhile, Syria's U.N. ambassador was also caught out while attempted to showcase the supposed compassion of Assad's troops.
“This is what the Syrian army is doing in Aleppo,” he told the Security Council. “Here you see a picture of a Syrian soldier providing help and succor to a woman, helping her get out of a car,” he added.
However, no such incident had occurred and the photo was actually taken during the second Iraq war.
Regime-friendly websites also shared photos of al-Qaeda militants on Syrian soil using snaps which were in fact taken thousands of miles away of Mali.
Some observers also highlighted the fact that the spread of fake photos hampered those who wished to highlight the horrors of the Assad regime by providing Damascus with an easy get-out clause in the wake of events such as the 2013 Sarin gas attack.
The issue is also apparent during the Israeli oppression of the Palestinian people.
Both sides regularly use online media to showcase their world-view and in fact the Israelis even fund an entire department dedicated to conducting cyber smear campaigns against the Palestinian cause.
For their part, some photos supposedly taken during the Israeli bombing of Gaza in 2014 and shared on social media later turned out to have originated from Syria.
These incidents have fuelled Israeli right wing propaganda and led to the term "Pallywood" being used in a bid to cover up state oppression.
During World War 1, U.S. Senator Hiram Johnson said that: "The first casualty of war is truth."
In the social media age, it seems that the line between truth and fiction is now more difficult to discern than ever before.
