Last night I saw this photo (original Dutch site’s servers are flooded) linked from this Metafilter thread. Yes, that is a photo of Bert from the Bert is Evil site. Apparently someone used this image (from a Bert is Evil tribute site) in a poster distributed to a Bangladeshi rally in support of Osama Bin Laden. This site seems to be the clearinghouse of information on the Bert Poster, including links to the original hi-res photos. Direct links to news photos with Bert in there are here and here. One of the photos was posted to FilePile before it showed up on Metafilter.

Personally, I don’t believe this is a hoax, at least not by the news organizations. Most likely someone did what any of us would do if asked to make a photo-collage poster about a person, search Google (note the 12th photo). Either the person creating this supported Bin Laden and thought this showed his human side by posing with a popular children’s TV character, or the intent was malicious or sarcastic. I guess now we’re waiting on a statement from Reuters.

Who said irony was dead?