The truth about that Syrian Statue of Liberty made from Aleppo rubble

People across the web are talking about the Statue of Liberty in Syria, which caught people's attention after this tweet:

Author Ian Bremmer wrote:

Statue of Liberty made from bombed rubble of Aleppo, by Syrian artist Tammam Azzam. Devastating.

Bremmer's tweet of the image, which shows a reconstructed the Statue of Liberty from the rubble of a destroyed building, has so far been retweeted 12,000 times. But what Bremmer wrote is slightly misleading.

You'd think from the description that it is a new work situation in Aleppo.

In fact, Syrian artist Tammam Azzam made the montage of images on his computer back in 2012, during the beginning of Syria’s uprising in the Arab Spring.

The statue doesn’t actually exist in real life - in fact if you look at the edges on the statue's crown this is plain to see.

In an interview with AlArabiya.net, Azzam, who now lives in Dubai, said:

The Statue of Liberty in New York does not represent US politics and I used it only as the symbol of freedom.

The piece at the time was carrying a message of optimism despite all of the destruction in Syria.

Azzam has created a number of images relating to the conflict in Syria, including this one:

And an image where he Photoshopped Gustav Klimt's well known painting, The Kiss, against an old Syrian building:

Don't take at face-value everything you see on the internet.

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