By: Emincan Yüksel
September 20 2023
No, this photo was not taken in Istanbul during British occupation in the 1920s
Share Article:
Screenshot of a Facebook post that showing a photo with the false claim that it was taken during the British occupation of Istanbul. Source: Facebook/Screenshot
Fact-Check
The Verdict False
This photo was not taken in Istanbul during the British occupation. It was taken on April 8, 1920, at the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem.
Claim ID 98b30423
Context
On August 30, 2023, a popular social media account in Türkiye shared a post claiming that during the occupation of İstanbul, British soldiers regularly searched Muslims of that period and that they reacted to this by laughing. The post received nearly 2 million views, 4,000 reposts, and 30,000 likes in about two weeks. This photo, allegedly taken in Istanbul, has been shared in Türkiye regularly over the last few years, misinforming the public and sharing similar claims.
Similar captions written in internet forums and social media posts with this photograph include:
- "The Islamic cleric laughs and makes the British occupier caress his ass."
- "A citizen posing with a smile while the British soldier who occupied Istanbul was taking roll call."
- "It is quite normal for Islamists, who laughed at the British occupying Istanbul on March 16, 1920, to be enemies of Atatürk today."
- "British soldiers searching madrasa students on the street in occupied Istanbul (1920)"
In fact
A reverse image search of the photograph leads to the 1920 Nebi Musa Riots uprising page on Wikipedia. Under the photo, the source is also shown: the Library of Congress of the United States of America. A search of the library's digital archive reveals the original photograph.
Pages with information about the photograph are also available on the library's website. The photograph was taken on April 8, 1920, in Jerusalem by the photographic department of the American colony there. The photograph was part of the G. Eric and Edith Matson Photographic Collection and was later donated to the Library of Congress.
When other images in the same collection as the photograph are analyzed, the Jaffa Gate detail is given as the location of the photographs, and when examining the Jaffa Gate on Google Maps, the images are similar to each other.
Istanbul stated was de facto occupied on November 13, 1918, and officially on March 16, 1920, by the forces of the Allied Powers, including the United Kingdom, following the signing of the Armistice of Moundros on October 30, 1918. The occupation ended with the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne on July 24, 1923, and the departure of foreign forces on October 2, 1923.
The end of Ottoman sovereignty in Jerusalem occurred when the control of the city passed to the British forces after the defensive struggle of the Ottoman Army against the British troops failed on December 9, 1917, during the First World War.
The verdict
The original photograph is in the Library of Congress of the United States of America's archive. It was not taken in Istanbul during the British occupation; it was taken on April 8, 1920, at the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.
