Does this photograph show Erdogan hospitalized after a heart attack?
Claim: President Erdogan was hospitalized for cardiac arrest.
The claim was reported to Teyit and seen on social media. The photograph shows President Erdogan lying on a bed that appears to be in a hospital. The image was accompanied by a statement that said Erdogan had suffered a heart attack and was in the hospital.
Google Translate renders the tweet in English as follows:
“#Turkey At least five Arab media outlets, including TV channels, announce the death of President #Erdogan following a heart attack. It has not been seen for several days and the authorities are wallowing in silence. This photo, not authenticated, circulates.”
However, the allegations are not true. The image was taken in 2005 at the opening of the Red Crescent Blood Center in Çapa, İstanbul.
The image was taken from a video published in 2012.
According to a news article by Ulusal Kanal in 2012, WikiLeaks emails that were leaked online in 2012 suggested that Erdogan had two years to live. Ulusal Kanal created a video for this news, which showed the image of Erdogan lying on what appeared to be a hospital bed. The video has the logo of DHA, a news agency in Turkey, at top right. The video cannot be found on DHA’s website, but it was posted on YouTube the same day as the news article was published.
The said image can be seen 1:03 seconds into the video.
The pictures are from 2005.
The pictures of the event can be found on the Anadolu Agency’s photograph archive website, where this photo is dated July 16, 2005.
The event can also be verified by checking other newspaper archives. A news article with images from the same day may be seen on Hurriyet’s newspaper archive website. That article was published on July 17, 2005, with a similar image of the same event.
When the pictures are examined, it is obvious that the viral image and the archival image were taken during the same event.
In conclusion, the viral image of Erdogan in a hospital bed is not a new one. The picture was taken in 2005 at the opening of the Red Crescent Blood Center in Istanbul.
Link to original: https://teyit.org/fotografin-kalp-krizi-sonucu-hastanede-yatan-erdogani-gosterdigi-iddiasi/