A video from Yemen in 2019 when crowds gathered to celebrate the birth of Prophet Mohammed is viral with false claims, all linking it to the recent incident where a a school teacher was beheaded by a radical islamist.
The video which shows scores of people gathered to celebrate the occasion in November 2019, has surfaced with false claims with captions on social media claiming it shows Muslims gathering in France days after the beheading, as a show of strength. A second claim to the viral video also links it to the France beheading incident and falsely says that the video is from Chechnya.
On October 16, Samuel Paty, aged 47, a history and geography teacher at College du Bois d'Aulne, was allegedly beheaded by a Abdoullakh Abouyezidovitch, an 18-year-old Russian refugee of Chechen origin settled in France. Paty, was allegedly attacked for holding a discussion on a controversial cartoon depicting Prophet Mohammed. The suspect, Abouyezidovitch is said to have been shot dead by police in the same area of Evreux, where the Paty's body was found.
One of the viral captions to the video falsely claims it is from France, stating, "आज फ्रांस है, कल आपका देश हो सकता है"
Both the captions are viral on Facebook and Twitter.
The second claim falsely says that the video is from Chechnya, and shows residents protesting against France. Chechnya is a predominantly Muslim Russian Republic and following a war between Russian forces and Islamist separatists around the 1900s and 2000s, France offered asylum to many from the region.
The attack has caused massive outrage in France, with protests erupting against those from Chechnya settled in France, who have been linked to past instances of violence in the country.
The caption says, "Chechen Muslims protest against France And expressing devotion to the Prophet..."
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BOOM found that the video is from Yemen and from November 2019 when large number of people gathered to celebrate the Prophet Mohammed's birthday.
We ran a search for a keyframe on the video and found several articles dating back to November 2019 which carried visuals from the same video. According to the news stories, the visuals were from the celebration of Prophet Mohammed held at Yemeni capital Sanaa.
In one of the articles published by Dhamar News, Yemen, we noticed a similar logo as seen in the viral video. The logo read - Ansar Allah Media Centre and a search led us to the news site of the same name, associated to the the Houthi movement in Yemen. We used a combination of keywords in Arabic and found a story from November 9, 2019 which carried photos matching visuals in the viral video.
According to the article published on November 9, 2019, the event was held at Sanaa "thousands flocked to celebrate the birth of the Prophet". "The event witnessed a wide public and official presence as the mass crowds began to flock to the event square from the early morning hours from the various directorates of Sana'a, the secretariat and the nearby governorates, article further said.
We then found a video on AFPTV, news agency AFP's video streaming service, from November 9, 2019 with visuals from the same event.
The incident has also also led to old videos and images from France being revived with false claims linking it to the beheading incident. BOOM has debunked two more such fake claims around the attack on the French teacher.
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