Following Pakistan’s photo gaffe, UNGA president hints at strong checks

On the heels of Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the UN Maleeha Lodhi’s gaffe on the floor of the UN General Assembly on Saturday, United Nations General Assembly President Miroslav Lajcak has said that he will chalk out plans and mechanism to deal with the use of morphed, altered pictures.

Lodhi had flashed a photograph of a woman, whose face was speckled with apparent pellet gun wounds, alleging that the woman was a Kashmiri local wounded by Indian security forces. The photograph turned out to be of 17-year-old Rawya abu Jomaa of Gaza Strip in Palestine, an alleged victim of an Israeli attack. The picture was clicked by award-winning American photojournalist Heidi Levine in 2014. 

When asked if he would like to set some sort of factual baseline when people make use of a wrong photograph, Lajcak said, "I will certainly think about it".

India had said Pakistan tried to mislead the UN General Assembly by displaying a fake picture.