Korean media misreports call for Rio terror attack

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By Park Jae-hyuk

Korean media have massively misreported Islamic terrorists’ order to attack the Rio 2016 Olympic Games because the outlets misunderstood English.

The problem arose after SITE Intelligence Group (SITE), a for-profit U.S. based company that tracks jihadist organizations’ online activity, posted an article on Friday with the headline “Telegram Channel Calls for Crossbow Attacks amid Ongoing Incitements against Rio Olympics.”

The lead paragraph says, “A jihadi Telegram channel posted a call to attack Rio 2016 Olympics attendees with ongoing calls for violence at the upcoming event.”

But Korean media translated the phrase “attendees with crossbows” into “Olympic archers.”

The media reported on Saturday that jihadists were preparing an attack on the archery range.

Some media also posted pictures of Brazilian police guarding a stadium and wrote that security was “becoming tighter on the archery range.”

Moon Hyung-chul, general manager of the South Korean national archery team, has reportedly received hundreds of text messages from family and friends concerned about his safety.

The Korea Archery Association said it paid $99.95 to subscribe to SITE to read the full text of the post.

The association said it did not find any direct mention of archery and that the article contained only a call for terrorists to use crossbows to attack participants.

However, as terrorist threats to the Olympic Games have continued, the association said participants’ safety was always the top priority.