Video of Pope Francis’s East Timor visit travels the world with different claims
A video has circulated on multiple social media platforms claiming that settlers are leaving Israel after peace talks between Iran and the United States failed. The footage shows numerous people and vehicles moving in one direction on a road. To verify the claim, Dismislab conducted a reverse image search. It was found that some reports identified the video as a procession in India, while others claimed it depicted a protest against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Accepting these claims as factual, several national and international media outlets have published reports at various times. However, Dismislab found that the claims related to the actual scene depicted in the video, which have surfaced periodically, are not true. Rather, the event is a scene from the visit of Pope Francis, the head of the Catholic Church, to East Timor on September 10, 2024.
Claim of protest scene against President Erdogan
The footage of the gathering has been claimed as a scene of protest against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in multiple (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) posts on the social media platform X. Using an identical caption, the posts claimed, “Protests against Erdogan continue in Turkey.” These posts were made on March 20, 2025, all on the same day. Additionally, the Poland-based entertainment website Demotywatory identified the video as a protest march against Erdogan.
Notably, on March 19, 2025, the prominent Turkish opposition politician Ekrem İmamoğlu was detained. Since that day, protesters have been demanding President Erdogan’s resignation. The video began circulating on social media as a scene of the ongoing protests at that time and remains on social media today.
CNN also published a report in 2025 stating that the video is not related to the protests against President Erdogan.
Claim of Tiranga Samvidhan Rally scene in Mumbai
The video became most widely circulated within the Indian context. It was claimed to be a scene from a march titled the “Tiranga Samvidhan Rally” (Tricolored Constitution Rally), led by former Member of Parliament Imtiaz Jaleel of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) party, protesting the hate speech of BJP MLA Nitesh Rane and religious leader Ramgiri Maharaj. Multiple (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) reports and posts with this claim are found in Indian media. A report published on September 24, 2024, by the Indian media outlet Loksatta stated, “The ‘Tiranga Samvidhan Rally,’ which started from Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar toward Mumbai under the leadership of AIMIM leader Imtiaz Jaleel, has reached the entrance of Mumbai. Police stopped the march at the Mulund Toll Plaza.”
Several Bangladeshi media outlets also published reports with the same claim. The fact-checking organization Rumor Scanner published a fact-check report on the matter, noting that the video circulating in various media outlets was being promoted under a false claim.
In 2024, a march titled the “Tiranga Samvidhan Rally” was held toward Mumbai under the leadership of former MP Imtiaz Jaleel of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen party to protest the hate speech of BJP MLA Nitesh Rane and religious leader Ramgiri Maharaj. On September 23, 2024, Imtiaz Jaleel called for this march via a post on his Facebook page. Approximately 12,000 Muslims participated in this march. Multiple (1, 2) fact-checking organizations have published fact-check reports on this.
Recent claim involving Israeli settlers
The video has recently been seen circulating on social media again, but this time under a different claim. It is being circulated on multiple social media platforms claiming to be a scene of settlers leaving Israel for elsewhere after the failure of Iran-US peace talks. Several posts with this claim were seen on social media platforms X (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), Facebook (1, 2, 3), and Instagram. Bangladeshi social media users are also writing in captions: “This exodus of millions of settlers from Israeli territory after the failure of (US-Iranian) talks reflects a true panic. Everyone is in extreme anxiety, and the Zionist entity is paralyzed by the fear of a major conflict that it cannot withstand. The entity is breaking down from within even before the war begins.”
What is the actual source of the video?
Verifying the actual source of the video that has circulated at different times under different claims shows that it is a scene of Pope Francis’s. He was the head of the Catholic Church. His trip to East Timor on September 10, 2024. On September 11, 2024, the video was posted from a personal Facebook profile with the caption: “Never in the history of East Timor has anything like this seen. And probably never to be seen again. The biggest crowd ever. This is the crowd that participated in Pope Francis’ mass in Tasi Tolu, in the capital of Timor-East, returning to their homes on September 11, 2024 during Pope Francis’ visit to Timor-East.”
Multiple (1, 2) posts on Facebook and posts on X regarding the Pope’s visit are found. The same video is found in every post, and between the 13 and 16-second marks of the video, two billboards featuring the image of Pope Francis can be seen. Notably, in all the prevalent false claims, these billboards were blurred out.
A video was found on Reuters’ YouTube channel dated September 10, 2024, depicting scenes from Pope Francis’s visit to East Timor. In the first 2 seconds of this video, the two billboards with Pope Francis’s image are visible.
Furthermore, the video claimed to be of Pope Francis’s visit to Timor appeared in various media reports and social media much earlier than all the other claims.
Researchers have termed the recurring appearance of old information under various false claims as “zombie facts.” Bloomberg journalist Leslie Patton mentioned the term “zombie facts,” which refers to pieces of misinformation that persist in our consciousness even after being debunked or proven false. The reason for this could be that we may not have seen the corrections, or the fear created in our minds by the initial news has become so deeply embedded that it is difficult to uproot later.
