Old Video Of Protests Against An Anti-Islam Film In London Going Viral With False Claims.

A video of a protest has been forwarded to our 24X7 Factline number 9049053770 with the claim that the Muslims are threatening the British Government to make England an Islamic country. In the video, a man can be heard saying, “This is our first message to the Parliament. People are making laws in Parliament. This is our first step. We have gathered here. We are expressing our concern. You, as Parliament, should listen to the peace-loving people of Britain, British citizens. We are proud to be British citizens and we need our rights. And the most important right for the people living in Britain is the order and respect of Muhammad.”

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However, as we investigated, we came to know that the viral video was old and shared with a false claim. Here’s the fact check.

Fact Check

We started our investigation by taking some screenshots from the viral video and conducting a reverse image search. As a result, we came to know that the location of the video was House Of Lords, United Kingdom. The statue shown in the video is known as Richard Coeur de Lion, also known as Richard the Lionheart.

It stands on a granite pedestal in Old Palace Yard outside the Palace of Westminster in London, facing south towards the entrance to the House of Lords.

A reverse image search of another screenshot led us to an image uploaded on the stock image website Alamy, where a large screen was shown, and there was a banner behind the person on the screen which read, “WE LOVE PROPHET MUHAMMED”. The banner was similar to that of the viral video. The description of the image read, “Westminster, London, UK. 6th October 2012. A large screen outside Parliament. A protest outside Parliament in Westminster against the film ‘Innocence of Muslims’, arranged to demonstrate about the film which is seen as offensive about the Prophet Mohammed”.

The comparison between the image found on Alamy and the screenshot from the viral video can be seen below.

Taking this clue, using relevant keywords we found a video uploaded on a YouTube channel on 19 October 2012. The caption of the video was, “Protest about Anti Islam Film at House of Parliament London 3/6”. From the timestamp 21:00, the viral speech can be heard.

It is worth mentioning that the 2012 film “Innocence of Muslims” sparked widespread protests in many countries, including Muslim countries, the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, and Australia.

From this, it’s clear that the video is old and it shows a protest against an anti-Islam film made in the US.

Conclusion

From our investigation, we can say that the claim is false. The video is old. People in the video are not threatening the British government to make England an Islamic country. Rather, they were protesting against an anti-Islam short film, “Innocence Of Muslim”, made in the US.