Old video of Kurdish protest in Paris shared with anti-Israel claims
Old video of Kurdish protest in Paris shared with anti-Israel claims
An anti-Israel protest is underway in Paris, the capital of France, according to a claim circulating alongside a video on the social media platform Facebook. However, a fact-check by Dismislab reveals the video is from a Kurdish protest in France in 2022. According to multiple international media outlets and fact-checking organizations, three Kurdish citizens were killed in a gunman’s attack in December 2022. In protest of this incident, members of the Kurdish community staged massive protests in Paris. Subsequently, this protest turned violent, and repeated clashes broke out between the police and the protesters.
On May 31, a video was posted from a personal Facebook profile with the caption, “Battlefield at an anti-#Israel protest in Paris, the capital of France.” In the 36-second video, several cars are seen lying scattered on the road. Fires are also seen burning in some vehicles. At the 19-second mark, several individuals are seen vandalizing the glass of a bus stop. Up until the writing of this report, the video has been viewed more than 20,000 times.
The video was seen posted with the same claim from multiple (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) personal Facebook profiles and pages.
To verify the truth, a reverse image search using keyframes led to a scene from the video in a report published by the media outlet BBC on December 23, 2022. This report stated, “Following the deaths of three people in an armed attack in Paris, fresh clashes have broken out between Kurdish protesters and police again today.” Additionally, multiple scenes from the circulated video match exactly with photos used in several (1, 2, 3) reports. In these reports as well, the photos are referred to as scenes of the Kurdish protest that took place in Paris.
A reverse image search of the scene visible at the 19-second mark of the circulated video led to a report published on December 25, 2022, by the Turkey-based media outlet Yeni Şafak. The video used in this report is an exact match to the second part of the circulated video. The report stated, “Under the pretext of protesting the armed attack that killed three people, supporters of the PKK terrorist organization carried out widespread violence in Paris, the capital of France.” Another report also referred to the video as a Kurdish protest. A scene from the video was also found in a report by the Russia-based media outlet Novaya Gazeta.
When the same video previously circulated on social media with different claims, multiple international fact-checking organizations (1, 2, 3) published reports identifying the video as the 2022 Kurdish protest in Paris.
Thus, an old video of a Kurdish protest in Paris is circulating with the claim of being an anti-Israel protest.
It is noted that in December 2022, a gunman killed three Kurdish citizens in Paris, the capital of France. Following this incident, Kurds held mourning processions alongside protests in Paris.
All social media captions, quotations, and news excerpts in this article have been translated into English from the languages in which they were originally posted or published.
