No, The Chinese PM Did Not Visit A Mosque To Protect Himself From Coronavirus

A 2015 video of a former Malaysian prime minister praying at a mosque in China is being shared with false claims that the China Prime Minister Li Keqiang is seeking protection from Coronavirus by praying at a mosque.

The viral video, with an Associated Press (AP) logo, shows a group of men praying at a mosque with the Arabic greeting of 'As-Salaam-Alaikum' audible in the background. The viral video is being circulated across WhatsApp and social media platforms with the caption: "China PM who told we'll translate the Quran as our own, realised that the only one way to protect from the Corona virus is doing 'sajtha' to Allah and went to mosque to pray, Masha Allah...."

The caption also refers to recent reports that China would be rewriting the Bible and Quran to 'reflect their socialist ideology'.

Across Facebook it has amassed over thousands of views from different pages. View an archive of the video on Facebook here.

Pages with over thirteen thousand followers have also shared the video with the same claim.

View the video on the Facebook page here and view the archived post here.

We also received the video on the BOOM helpline number (+91 7700906111) enquiring for its veracity.

View the tweet here and the archive here.

Fact Check

BOOM found that video is from 2015 and shows the then Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi visiting a mosque in China, during his official visit to the country. The video does not feature current Premier – Li Keqian – the prime minister of the Chinese government.

BOOM analysed the keyframes of the video and scanned through archives of wire news agency Associated Press and found the video uploaded to their official channel in July 2015.

The description of the video reads, "Pan Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi walks into mosque". The video has also carried the story from the visit, "On the second day of his five-day trip to China, Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi visited Beijing's Nan Xia Po Mosque and took part in Friday prayers. The mosque is one of China's oldest, built around three hundred years ago during the Qing dynasty."

View the AP video below:

According to other media reports, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, the Prime Minister of Malaysia at the time, visited Beijing's Nan Xia Po Mosque to take part in Friday prayers on the second day of his trip. Badwai visited the three hundred year old mosque and even met the Imam Zhang Wan Chun.

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India confirmed its third positive case of Coronavirus on February 3, 2020. All the three cases are from Kerala and travelled to India from Wuhan. The 2019-novel Coronavirus has so far claimed 427 lives and has 20,500 confirmed cases.

BOOM has debunked several such false messages surrounding the Coronavirus pandemic. View our thread on the same, below.