A cartoon published in French satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo's October 2014 edition has been edited and shared on social media with false captions claiming that the French weekly has targeted the Shaheen Bagh protesters with the said cartoon.
BOOM tracked the original cartoon to October 2014 which was published in the newspaper under the title 'Boko Haram's sex slaves are angry' in French. The speech bubble in the original cartoon has the words 'Don't touch our welfare!' written in French which has been edited and changed to 'Shaheen Bhag' in the viral image.
(French: Title - Les esclaves sexuelles de Boko Haram en colère and speech bubble - TOUCHEZ PAS À NOS ALLOCS!)
On December 14, 2019, after the passage of Citizen Amendment Act (CAA) in both houses of the Parliament, a 24x7 sit-in protests led by the women of Shaheen Bagh locality started in Delhi. Soon, the protests had later become eponymous with the neighborhood where it had started and was known as Shaheen Bagh protests.
The viral image shared by several Indian social media users show four pregnant women, wearing head-scarf, chanting a misspelled 'Shaheen Bhag'. A Hindi caption with the viral post translates to 'While no one dared it in India, Charlie Hebdo has brought out the truth by publishing a cartoon of the women of Shaheen Bagh'.
(Hindi: भारत में तो किसी की हिम्मत नहीं हुई लेकिन चार्ली हेब्दो ने शाहीन बाग की ख़ातूनों का कार्टून छाप कर असलियत बयान कर दी।)
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View the viral post below and check its archived version here.
Other users have shared the same picture with similar captions.
Several users even shared the original image but with a caption claiming that Charlie Hebdo has published a cartoon on Shaheen Bagh protests.
A page called The Sarcastic Woman also added the hashtag #WestandWithFrance due to the religion-based skirmishes in France. There have been several beheadings and knife attacks in France in October. Most of the accused were found to be Muslim and the country is taking strict measures against them.
Check the archive of the post here.
Fact Check
BOOM did a keyword and reverse image search and found that the image was originally published by the weekly magazine in October 2014. While we could not find the cartoon actually published in the magazine, we did find other reports which carried it.
According to an article published in Vox on January 12, 2015, the cartoon was a satirical take on France's welfare policy analysts who, at that time, were arguing that France should cut its welfare programs as they felt that immigrant women were exploiting their benefits.
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The cartoonists chose to use victims of the Nigerian terrorist group Boko Haram to criticise the French welfare analysts.
The original cartoon shows four pregnant Nigerian women wearing headscarves, shouting 'DON'T TOUCH OUR ALLOCS (allocation/welfare)'.
(French: TOUCHEZ PAS À NOS ALLOCS)
The cartoon's title, in French, translates to 'Angry Boko Haram sex slaves'.
(French: Les esclaves sexuelles de Boko Haram en colère)
Furthermore, Shaheen Bagh is misspelled as 'Shaheen Bhag' in the viral image. The text color as well as the font are different from those in the original cartoon, suggesting that the image is edited.
Charlie Hebdo is known for its cartoons and satirical takes aimed at religions. On January 7, 2015, two Muslim gunmen had opened fire at the newspaper's headquarters in Paris killing twelve people.