A photo is being shared on social media with a claim that Muslim refugees in Switzerland burned the Swiss flag last year during the protest to remove the cross symbol from on the flag of Switzerland. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Muslim refugees in Switzerland burned the Swiss flag in a protest to remove cross symbol on the Swiss flag.
Fact: Photo in the post shows Pakistani Muslims burning the Denmark flag during a demonstration in Karachi on ‘23 February 2006’. Massive protests swept across several Islam countries in early 2006 following the twelve cartoons published in a Danish newspaper depicting Prophet Mohammed. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
On reverse image search, we found the same photo on ‘getty images’ website. In the description of the photo, it is mentioned that Pakistani Muslims burned the Danish flag during a demonstration in Karachi on ‘23 February 2006’. It is mentioned that the hardline Islamic parties in Pakistan continued their countrywide protests denouncing the publication of cartoons depicting Prophet Mohammed in several European newspapers.
On comparing the flags of Denmark and Switzerland, we can conclude that the Muslims in the photo are burning the Denmark flag, not the flag of Switzerland.
We found the same photo in an article published by the ‘INDEPENDENT’ news website. In the article, it is mentioned that massive protests swept the Muslim world in early 2006 following the 12 cartoons of Prophet Mohammed published in a Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. Twelve cartoon drawings of the Prophet Mohammed published by Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten had a huge impact around the world. Massive protests were held in several Islamic countries denouncing the cartoons depicting Prophet Mohammed.
To sum it up, old photo of Pakistani Muslims burning the Denmark flag is now falsely shared as Muslim refugees burning the Swiss flag in a protest to remove cross symbol on the flag.
