Photos of ‘staged’ Syria strikes are from movie set
PARIS: Photographs which claim to show Syrian volunteer rescue workers, known as the White Helmets, staging a chemical attack in Eastern Ghouta were actually taken from a film set, according to Factuel, an AFP fact-checking blog.
The White Helmets, a humanitarian organisation made up of some 3,000 volunteers, has regularly been the target of disinformation campaigns by the Syrian regime and conspiracy theorists online.
The photos — which show actors covered in dust, with bloody makeup and a clapper board — were presented by supporters of Bashar al-Assad as proof that the alleged chlorine and sarin gas attack in the rebelheld town of Douma on April 7 was fake.
But the photos come from the set of a Syrian film called Revolution Man, supported by the Syrian culture ministry, and were published in February on a Facebook page devoted to the movie.
The film’s premiere was also reported by the official Syrian news agency SANA on March 9 — a month before the alleged chemical attack.
According to SANA, the film tells the story of a journalist in search of fame “who illegally enters Syria to take pictures and videos of the war”.
After failing to achieve his goal, he “fabricates a chemical attack to give his photos a global impact”, the agency said.
The investigative site Bellingcat reported the pictures were also shared by the Russian public channel Russia 1, which
presented them as proof that the chemical attack was fake.
On April 7 the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) and the White Helmets jointly said dozens of people died in a “poisonous chlorine gas attack” in Douma.
The US, Britain and France launched missile strikes at the weekend in response to the alleged chemical attack.