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  • 2020-06-03 (xsd:date)
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  • This video shows an Eid-al-Fitr prayer in northwest China in 2015 (en)
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  • A video has been viewed thousands of times in multiple posts on Facebook and YouTube alongside a claim that it shows Chinese citizens converting to Islam as a result of the novel coronavirus pandemic. The claim is false; the footage actually shows an Eid-al-Fitr prayer in the Chinese city of Xining in 2015, years before the pandemic. This five-minute 54-second video shows an aerial view of a mass congregation. It was published on YouTube on March 20, 2020. The video’s Indonesian-language title translates to English as: Chinese citizens flocked to convert to Islam due to corona. Below is a screenshot of the misleading post: Screenshot of misleading post As of June 2, 2020, at least 84,597 people in China have been infected with COVID-19 and 4,645 people have died, according to this World Health Organization (WHO) tally. The same footage, which has been watched more than 13,000 times, was also shared on Facebook here , here , here and here , alongside a similar claim. The claim is false; the video actually shows an Eid-al-Fitr prayer in the Chinese city of Xining in 2015. A reverse image search on Google followed by a keyword search found a longer, higher-quality version of the video published here on Baidu Video, a Chinese video platform. The nine-minute 27-second video's Chinese-language title translates to English as: Spectacular SD aerial video / Eid al-Fitr at Xining Dongguan Mosque. Eid-al-Fitr marks the end of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting, which is celebrated by performing communal prayer as well as visiting family and friends. Dongguan Mosque , one of the largest mosques in northwest China, is located in Xining , Qinghai province. At the 11-second mark, text superimposed on the video reads: Xining Dongguan Mosque/2015.7.17. Below are two screenshot comparisons of scenes in the video in the misleading post (L) and the Baidu Video clip (R): Screenshot comparison between scenes in the misleading video (L) and clip in Baidu Video (R) The logo for Tencent, a Chinese online video platform, can be seen in the right-hand corner of both clips. The video has been removed from Tencent, but the Tencent link appears in this Weibo post, dated March 3, 2016, with the same video title: Spectacular SD aerial video / Eid al-Fitr at Xining Dongguan Mosque. Chinese portal Sina.com also published this report dated July 18, 2015, about Eid-al-Fitr celebrations across China, which fell one day earlier in some parts of the country, including Qinghai. Images of Dongguan Mosque , seen on Google Street View below, correspond with the video. (en)
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