A video is being shared on social media claiming it as recent visuals of thousands of Muslims offering Namaz on the streets of France. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Video of Muslims offering Namaz on the streets of France.
Fact: The video shared in the post shows thousands of Muslims offering Namaz outside the Moscow Cathedral Mosque in Russia. Every year, Muslims in Moscow offer prayers outside the Cathedral Mosque during Ramzan month. This video has nothing to do with France. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
On reverse image search of the screenshots shared in the post, the same video was found to be tweeted by Hammoud Al-Tuqi, a journalist and the editor-in-chief of Al-Waha Magazine, on 03 May 2022. He reported it as the visuals of Eid Al-Fitr prayers in Moscow, Russia. When we searched for more credible sources using these keywords, we found the same video published on the ‘Yeni Safak’ and other Turkish news websites articles. They can be seen here and here. Sharing the video, these news websites reported it as the visuals of thousands of Muslims offering Eid prayers on the streets of Moscow. They reported that Muslims who could not fit into the Mosques have performed prayers outside using their prayer mats.
On observing the video carefully, one can notice a mosque with a golden tomb. Benjamin Strik, the director of the Centre for Information Resilience, has confirmed that the Mosque seen in the video is Moscow Cathedral Mosque in Russia. When we compared the pictures of the Moscow Cathedral Mosque with that of the structure seen in the video, it is confirmed that the video shows the prayers at the Moscow Cathedral Mosque in Russia.
In 2013, the ‘BBC World’ correspondent Olga Ivshina tweeted a similar picture of Muslim prayers on the streets in Moscow. A few other videos showing Eid prayers near the Moscow Cathedral Mosque can be seen here and here. Though we could not ascertain the exact date and time on which this video was taken, it can be confirmed that the video shared in the post shows an incident that took place in Russia’s Moscow.
To sum it up, a video that was taken in Russia’s Moscow is shared as visuals of Muslims offering Namaz on the streets of France.
