Fact Check: Photograph of Turkish immigrant boy falsely claimed to be Dr Ugur Sahin
A picture of a Turkish immigrant family has gone viral with a false claim that the 'boy in the yellow t-shirt' is Dr Ugur Sahin, the CEO of a Germany-based company, BioNTech SE, who developed the COVID-19 vaccine along with Pfizer Inc.
By Newsmeter Network Published on 13 Dec 2020 8:45 AM GMT
Hyderabad: A picture of a Turkish immigrant family has gone viral with a false claim that the 'boy in the yellow t-shirt' is Dr Ugur Sahin, the CEO of a Germany-based company, BioNTech SE, who developed the COVID-19 vaccine along with Pfizer Inc.
The claim read, "A family of Muslim immigrants from Turkey newly arrived in Germany. The boy in the yellow t-shirt went on to lead the team that cracked the Covid vaccine."
Click here to view the archive and here for a similar claim.
Fact Check:
NewsMeter found that the boy in the image is not Dr Sahin who developed the COVID-19 vaccine along with Pfizer Inc.
We performed a reverse image search and found the same image in an article on Art Review and Art Journal Open from 2017. The image was credited to photographer Candida Hofer, who clicked this picture as part of her series 'Türken in Deutschland 1979 (Turks in Germany 1979)'.
We also found the image on Twitter by DiasporaTurk, a volunteer community that discusses the experiences of Turk immigrants in Europe. It states that the "family is from Aksaray. The father came to Germany in 1965 as a worker. In 1975 he decided to bring his wife and four children to Düsseldorf."
It should be noted that Dr. Sahin is from Iskenderun in Turkey. According to a New York Times article, "Dr. Sahin, 55, was born in Iskenderun, Turkey. When he was 4, his family moved to Cologne, Germany, where his parents worked at a Ford factory."
Evidently, a photograph of a Turkish immigrant boy has been shared with false claims that he is Dr Ugur Sahin.
