Old video from Denmark passed off as recent Quran-burning incident in Sweden

Hyderabad: On January 21, Rasmus Paludan, a leader of the Danish far-right political party `Hard Line’, sparked worldwide outrage after he burnt a copy of the Quran outside the Turkish embassy in Stockholm.

A video of a man burning a book on the street and a man dousing the fire is doing the rounds on social media. Social Media users sharing the video claim that the video shows Rasmus Paludan burning a copy of the Quran.

A Twitter user shared the video and wrote, “The #Swedish government allows infamous #Islamophobe (Rasmus Paludan) to burn the #Quran in public…” (Archive)

Click here to see the post.

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the video is at least a year old and is from Denmark, not Sweden.

On performing a reverse image search of the video’s keyframe, we found a viral video in a report published by a YouTube channel, TBVHR, on 3 March 2021. As per the Turkish description, the video shows a man burning the Quran on the street in Copenhagen, Denmark. It also stated that the man is a member of Stram Kur, a far-right-wing political party in Denmark.

We also found the video in a report published by YeniSafak on 3 March 2021. It said that the video shows a racist of the far-right political party, StramKurs, burning the Quran in Norrebro, a Muslim-majority area, in Copenhagen, Denmark. It also mentioned that a Muslim youth snatched and doused the burning book, and two others beat up the man.

The video does show Quran burning, but the incident is a year old and is from Denmark, not Sweden. Hence, we conclude that the claim that the video shows Rasmus Paludan burning a copy of the Quran in Sweden is misleading.