No, This Video Does Not Show Saudi Government Disposing French Products
BOOM found that the clip is from November 2016 which shows officials in Al-Qassim, Saudi Arabia dispose of expired chicken packets.
A four-year-old clip showing packs of rotten chicken being thrown of trucks in Al-Qassim, Saudi Arabia has been revived and shared falsely claiming that it shows the Saudi government boycotting French products by throwing them away in the desert.
The clip is being shared in the backdrop of the beheading of a French teacher Samuel Paty, outside his school on October 16, 2020, by a Chechen origin radical Islamist for showing his class, caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.
French President Emmanuel Macron while defending the ideal of free speech had criticised Islamists and vowed not to "give up cartoons" depicting the Prophet Mohammed. This led to calls on social media by many Muslim users to boycott French products in protest.
In the 15 seconds clip, one can spot packets being tossed away from inside the trucks that are standing in line.
The viral clip is being shared with the caption which when translated from Telugu reads, "Saudi Arabia throws French goods in the desert"
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The same clip is being shared on Twitter with the hashtag boycott france products.
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Viral on Facebook
On searching with the same Telegu caption on Facebook, we found that it was being shared with the false claim.
Also Read: CCTV Clip From Brazil Falsely Shared As Muslim Man Attacked In France
FACT-CHECK
On breaking the video into key-frames and performing a reverse image search using Google Images, we found news reports which showed that the clip is from November 2016 of officials in Al-Qassim province, Saudi Arabia getting rid of thousands of packaged expired chicken not fit for human consumption.
It is all part of an official operation under the supervision of the Secretariat of al-Qassim region to dispose of around 80,000 packs of expired chicken not fit for human consumption reported Al Arabiya, which is a Saudi owned media outlet based in Dubai on November 17, 2016.
The report further stated that these packs of expired chicken were confiscated inside 25 refrigerated trucks prior to their distribution in the Al-Qassim province. In the title image, the same tucks can be seen as in the viral clip.
We also found a video report by Yahala show dated November 16, 2016, which has the same clip and one can see the same set of events play out with packets being thrown out of a truck from the 52 seconds timestamp. The video report is titled which when translated reads, "Destruction of 800,000 expired chickens that were intended for distribution in Al-Qassim".
BOOM has previously debunked misinformation after the killing of the French teacher in Paris as unrelated videos and images have been shared with false claims.
Also Read: 2012 Video Of Turkish Police Dispersing Protesters Falsely Shared As France
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