Claim
A video showing a huge gathering of people to offer namaz on the streets near a mosque in Moscow, Russia has resurfaced with false communal claims that it is from the streets of Paris, France. The Facebook posts have been captioned as, “This is Paris today. Watch and weep. This is a picture of Bharat tomorrow if you do not wake up and act.” BOOM also received the video on its WhatsApp helpline (+917700906588) for verification.
Fact
BOOM debunked the viral video in May, 2022, when it was viral with the same communal claim. We compared the skyscraper and the adjacent mosque that are visible in the video with stock image and news reports which revealed that the viral video is from Moscow Cathedral Mosque, located at Olimpiysky Avenue in Russia. With relevant keywords, we also found an image from the same location that was tweeted in 2013 by BBC World Correspondent Olga Ivshina, who stated that the image shows people offering namaz in Moscow on the occasion of Eid-al-Adha. However, BOOM could not independently verify when exactly the video was shot in Moscow.