An old video of a Belgian politician, Filip Dewinter, holding the Quran and claiming that it is "the root of all evils" is circulating with Indian netizens falsely claiming it to be a discussion in France's parliament.
BOOM found that the viral video was originally filmed on January 22, 2015, at the chamber of federal parliament of Belgium in Brussels. Dewinter's critical remarks on the Quran was reported widely at the time and his critics called him 'Islamophobic'.
The man in the video is identified as Filip Dewinter, member of the Belgian Parliament and a leader of Vlaams Belang- a right-wing Flemish nationalist and secessionist political party.
The video is being shared after an Islamic extremist -18-year-old Abdullakh Anzorov - killed a teacher, Samuel Paty, in France. Paty had given a lecture on free speech where he showed cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in his class. Later, police has shot Anzorov dead but the divisions have been deepened since the killing. Read here.
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In the video, Filip is speaking mostly in Dutch. He is extremely critical of the Quran and claims that the book is 'root of all evils' and that it is 'a license to kill'. He also states that the book is the foundation of Islamic teachings.
The video is shared on Facebook and Twitter with a caption that reads: "Discussion about Quran in French Parliament.. Quran: Root of all evil..License to kill !" (Sic)
The same video is being shared on Twitter with the same claim.
The archived version of the viral posts can be accessed here and here.
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Fact Check
BOOM picked up some relevant keywords from the video and did a keywords search on Google. We found a longer version of the viral clip on Dailymotion, a video aggregating platform. The platform uploaded the video with a heading "Belgian MP labels Quran 'the source of all evil'" and identified the man as Filip Dewinter. It also gives away the year of the video and name of the country it was recorded in.
Subsequently, we ran a reverse image search using one of the frames and his name 'Filip Dewinter'. We found numerous news reports carrying his photograph holding a copy of Quran. Read here and here. A website of Vlaams Belang published the transcript of Filip Dewinter's speech in the parliament on the same day as it was delivered.
This screenshot is taken after Google translation from Dutch to English.
We found a news report published by Middle East Eye carried a image of Filip Dewinter from the same parliamentary debate. The picture was credited to a photo website Agence France-Presse, i.e. AFP. We traced the photo on the photo section of the AFP confirming it to be from Belgium.
The caption to the image was in Dutch. It translations to: "Vlaams Belang Filip Dewinter holds the Quran during a speech at a plenary session of the Chamber at the federal parliament, in Brussels, Thursday 22 January 2015. BELGA PHOTO LAURIE DIEFFEMBACQ LAURIE DIEFFEMBACQ / BELGA / AFP"
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