{"id":1464,"date":"2020-12-08T09:46:28","date_gmt":"2020-12-08T09:46:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=135229"},"modified":"2020-12-08T09:46:28","modified_gmt":"2020-12-08T09:46:28","slug":"photo-of-turkish-family-from-1979-viral-as-old-family-photo-of-biontech-co-founder-sahin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2020\/12\/08\/photo-of-turkish-family-from-1979-viral-as-old-family-photo-of-biontech-co-founder-sahin\/","title":{"rendered":"Photo of Turkish family from 1979 viral as old family photo of BioNtech co-founder \u015eahin"},"content":{"rendered":"

On December 6, World Health Organisation (WHO) chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan told Business Standard<\/a> that Pfizer and BioNtech are in the final stages of talks with the WHO to join the Covax alliance for coronavirus vaccines. According to BBC<\/a>, BioNtech was founded by Turkish-descendant couple U\u011fur \u015eahin and \u00d6zlem T\u00fcrec and Professor Christoph Huber, an Austrian cancer expert.<\/p>\n

In the backdrop of this, Twitter user @richardsennett<\/a> (archived link<\/a>) shared an image of a family and wrote, \u201cThis is an immigrant family, newly arrived in Germany. The boy in the yellow shirt will go on to invent the COVID vaccine.\u201d Sennett\u2019s bio<\/a> links to his website<\/a> which states he is a senior advisor at the United Nations (UN) and a visiting professor at MIT. His tweet was retweeted over 13,000 times and gained over 75,000 likes.<\/p>\n

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This is an immigrant family, newly arrived in Germany. The boy in the yellow shirt will go on to invent the COVID vaccine. pic.twitter.com\/F3kinfFzac<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Richard Sennett (@richardsennett) December 6, 2020<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This image has been shared by multiple users on Facebook<\/a> along with the above-mentioned text.<\/p>\n

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Fact-check<\/h4>\n

Using advanced search on Twitter<\/a>, we found that @richardsennett<\/a> was the first account that posted this image along with the text, \u201cThis is an immigrant family, newly arrived in Germany. The boy in the yellow shirt will go on to invent the COVID vaccine.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Next, we performed a reverse image search on TinEye using InVid, an image verification browser plugin and found that it was published on the website of US-based Harvard Art Museums<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This slideshow requires JavaScript.<\/p>\n

The title of the image on Harvard Art Museums<\/a> is \u2018Turks in Germany 1979\u2019 and it is a part of the slide projection art installation that was displayed between September 2019 and January 2020. Further in the image description, it is mentioned that it was sold to the Busch-Reisinger Museum in 2019 by Galerie Thomas Zander. The description added the credit and copyright as Harvard Art Museums\/Busch-Reisinger Museum, Francis H. Burr Memorial Fund and Candida H\u00f6fer \/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, NY respectively. The website doesn\u2019t state that the image shows the family of U\u011fur \u015eahin or \u00d6zlem T\u00fcrec.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson at Harvard Art Museums told Alt News, \u201cThe photograph was taken by the German artist Candida H\u00f6fer. This photo does not, to our knowledge, depict BioNtech U\u011fur \u015eahin.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is pertinent to note that on November 10, Muslim Mirror<\/a> (archive link<\/a>) claimed that the boy in a yellow t-shirt is \u015eahin along with his family. UK-based member of parliament Naz Shah<\/a> (archived linked<\/a>) also shared this article.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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On November 17, the claim was refuted by Twitter account DiasporaT\u00fcrk, that posts about Turkish heritage and literature. As per DiasporaT\u00fcrk, the boy grew up to become a mechanic, specifically a lathe-levelling professional.<\/p>\n

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Bug\u00fcn bir\u00e7ok yerde foto\u011fraftaki erkek \u00e7ocu\u011funun Prof.Dr. U\u011fur \u015eahin oldu\u011fuyla ilgili payla\u015f\u0131mlar yap\u0131ld\u0131.<\/p>\n

Ailenin hikayesini daha \u00f6nce payla\u015fm\u0131\u015ft\u0131k. O \u00e7ocuk b\u00fcy\u00fcd\u00fc ve torna-tesviye ustas\u0131 oldu. Bu onu kimseden daha az \u00f6nemli yapm\u0131yor. Ailenin an\u0131s\u0131na sayg\u0131 duyulmas\u0131 \u00fcmidiyle\u2026 https:\/\/t.co\/o7cMqwq37Q<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/DB4phsLn36<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 DiasporaT\u00fcrk (@diaspora_turk) November 17, 2020<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

As per The New York Times<\/a>, \u015eahin moved to Germany along with his mother when he was four. At the time, his father was working at a Ford factory in Cologne. While T\u00fcrec was born in Germany, she is the daughter of a Turkish physician who immigrated from Istanbul.<\/p>\n

Therefore, an image of a Turkish family was shared on social media with the claim that it is the family picture of BioNTech co-founder U\u011fur \u015eahin.<\/p>\n

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This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On December 6, World Health Organisation (WHO) chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan told Business Standard that Pfizer and BioNtech are in the final stages of talks with the WHO\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,520],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1464"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1464"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1465,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1464\/revisions\/1465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}