Thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators, along with Climate activist Greta Thunberg, gathered in the Swedish city of Malmo to protest against Israel's participation in the Eurovision Song Contest on May 9. Singer Eden Golan from Israel had qualified for Eurovision’s grand finale, scheduled for May 1, amid heightened security.
Now, a video of several masked men hurling smoke bombs and vandalising police vehicles is going viral on social media. These men could be seen throwing bricks at the vehicles and attacking those attempting to intervene.
Those sharing the video claimed that it shows the Eurovision protesters in Malmo resorting to violence and damaging public property in Sweden. One person shared the video on Threads, and wrote, “Hamas supporters tried to attack an Israeli singer at Eurovision. They had rope.” An archived version of one such post can be seen here.
India Today Fact Check found that this video has no connection to the ongoing protests in Sweden. Instead, it shows an anti-Israel protest staged during a Sweden tennis match in 2009.
OUR PROBE
Reverse searching keyframes from the viral video led us to a media report dated March 7, 2009. It contained a screenshot of the video in question. According to the report, dozens of anti-Israel protesters clashed with police outside the Baltic Arena in Malmo, Sweden. The protesters reportedly attempted to storm the stadium where the home country was playing a Davis Cup tennis match against Israel.
Davis Cup, or the World Cup of Tennis, is the world's largest annual team sporting competition.
We also found the full video of the violent protest, in which the viral clip could be seen at the beginning.
Per reports, hundreds of left-wing activists joined the pro-Palestinian demonstration of about 6,000 people and began hurling stones, fireworks, and paint bombs at police vans. About a thousand police officials were deployed in Malmo to prevent the protesters from entering the stadium, using barricades and truncheons to push the rioters back. The protesters wanted to disrupt the match, which was reportedly being played without any fans in Malmo due to security concerns.
The match went ahead as planned amid heavy protests outside the arena. Police reportedly arrested eight protesters and detained more than a hundred others. No injuries were reported in the incident.
It is thus clear that an old video from 2009 is being falsely linked to the ongoing protest in Sweden against Israel’s participation in Eurovision.
Published By:
Ashutosh Acharya
Published On:
May 10, 2024
English (US) ·