Old video falsely viral as Muslims set ablaze French embassy in Sudan after Paris beheading

A video is being shared on social media with the claim that Muslims set fire to the French embassy in Sudan. It is being suggested that the embassy was set ablaze in retaliation for the cartoons of Prophet Muhammad shown by French teacher Samuel Paty in his class on freedom of speech. The teacher was beheaded by an offended Moscow-born teenager in suburban Paris on October 16.

सूडान में फ्रांस की अंबेसी को मुसलमानों ने किया आग के हवाले
ऐ ज़ालिमों! तुम दुनिया के मुसलमानों पर लाख ज़ुल्म व सितम करो,बर्दाश्त किया जा सकता है
लेकिन
हमारे नबी की शान में गुस्ताख़ी हम हर्गिज़ बर्दाश्त नहीं कर सकते हैं
चाहे तुम हमें आतंकवादी कहते फिरो या जिहादी@Allah_Ki_Talwar pic.twitter.com/Jl6Ck2Gyu6

— Mohammad Saifullah (GAF & MDP) (@Allah_Ki_Talwar) October 25, 2020

The complete message in Hindi reads, “सूडान में फ्रांस की अंबेसी को मुसलमानों ने किया आग के हवाले ऐ ज़ालिमों! तुम दुनिया के मुसलमानों पर लाख ज़ुल्म व सितम करो,बर्दाश्त किया जा सकता है लेकिन नबी की शान में गुस्ताख़ी हम हर्गिज़ बर्दाश्त नहीं कर सकते हैं चाहे तुम हमें आतंकवादी कहते फिरो या जिहादी.”

A number of Twitter users with followers count in the thousands, including @RajaRajaAti17492920, @msjoha8, @Riyajulhaq3, and @HifzanSiddique shared the clip.

The viral video and accompanying claim have also made their way to Facebook.

Alt News received a request to investigate these visuals on our official app.

Old video

When we performed a reverse image search of a frame from this clip, we found the original source on YouTube from September 2012. The Arabic description of the video reads, ” فيديوا إقتحام السفارة الأمريكية في السودان… .أكشن .” This roughly translates to, “A video of the attack on the American Embassy in Sudan.”

A subsequent keyword search led us to media reports from September 2012 stating that various foreign embassies in Sudan had been attacked. As reported by Al Jazeera on September 15, 2012, violent protests in Tunisia, Yemen, Sudan and elsewhere targeted the American, British and German embassies. This was in response to an ‘anti-Islamic’ scene in an American movie trailer. The protesters claimed that the video insulted Muhammed. Parts of the opening scenes of Al Jazeera’s video report match the visuals from the viral video.

We also noticed the viral clip was part of a CNN story dated September 14, 2012. The report stated that the protesters seen here were storming the German Embassy in Khartoum, Sudan.

The Guardian also covered the unrest. “The film which sparked the unrest, ‘Innocence of Muslims’, appears to have been made by a Californian Coptic Christian who posed as an Israeli. The film was denounced as ‘reprehensible’ by the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton.” A September 2020 report in The Wall Street Journal mentioned that the filmmaker had been arrested in another case of fraud.

Therefore, the viral clip has nothing to do with any recent events. The video in question actually shows scenes from the violent demonstrations that took place in Sudan in 2012.