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Social media posts criticising a group of South Korean families who went on hunger strike to push for an inquiry into a ferry disaster in 2014 are sharing a photo they falsely claim shows a campaigner secretly tucking into a bowl of noodles. The picture was actually taken at a demonstration by a civic group in which participants feasted on junk food to mock the hunger strike by families, whom they accused of seeking to bring down the government. Sewol ferry [protester] eating black bean noodles secretly smuggled in through the back of the tent. This is how leftists do hunger strikes, reads a Korean-language Facebook post shared on December 25. The photo shows a person eating a bowl of noodles, with a sign around their neck that says: 3 days into hunger strike. More than 300 people died in the Sewol ferry sinking in 2014, most of them high school students on an organised trip, in one of South Korea's deadliest maritime disasters. Following the tragedy, a group of family members, some of them on rotating hunger strike , camped out of Seoul's main ceremonial thoroughfare for months to push demands for a full inquiry. According to local reports, some right-wing groups mocked the families by organising binge strikes where they scoffed noodles, pizza and fried chicken and wore signs that accused them of neglecting their children. Screenshot of a Facebook post sharing the false claim, taken on January 3, 2022 The same photo appeared in similar Facebook here , here and here and also on Twitter . Some social media users appeared to believe the photo genuinely showed a Sewol ferry hunger striker eating noodles. They only pretend to starve in front of the camera! read a comment in Korean. Of course it's all a scam. They claim they're fasting but they're all eating behind our backs, another wrote. However, the claim is false. 'Binge strike' A reverse image search on Google found the photo in an article about a binge strike on August 27, 2014 by a group called The Korean Parent Federation. The report by South Korean news outlet Business Watch also features a photo of the same protester in which the sign around their neck is fully visible. In Korean, it reads: We demand the truth from Kim Young-oh. A national rally to demand the truth from Kim 3 days into hunger strike. Kim Young-oh lost his 16-year-old daughter in the Sewol ferry sinking and went on hunger strike for 45 days, demanding legislation setting up a full inquiry into the disaster. Screenshot of Business Watch's report on the protest, taken on January 4, 2023 A photo of the same person sitting with a group of protesters was published in an article by News1, which reported that the binge strike was held across the street from the tent in which Kim was holding his hunger strike. Footage of the protest posted on YouTube , which shows the person in the photo at the 01:47 mark , shows a demonstrator with a loudspeaker saying: We should avoid using double standards. How come some hunger strikes are good and others are bad? The person with the loudspeaker also accused a then-opposition politician of orchestrating the protests in order to try to bring down the government. An investigation into the binge strikes by South Korean broadcaster MBC showed similar footage of the protesters. Initial investigations into the Sewol disaster concluded it was largely man-made -- the cumulative result of an illegal redesign, an overloaded cargo bay, inexperienced crew and a questionable relationship between the ship operators and state regulators. Captain Lee Jun-Seok was sentenced to life in prison for murder through wilful negligence and 14 other crew members were given terms ranging from two to 12 years. However, the final result of an inquiry announced in June 2022 concluded that the exact cause of the disaster could not be determined.
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