After the President of the United States retweeted anti-Muslim propaganda from the far-right Britain First group, Press Secretary Sarah Sanders defended the action by saying that it didn’t matter if the videos were real or not, but what matters is a vague “threat” (that Muslims walk among us?) that Trump is taking seriously. Turns out that two of the videos Trump retweeted were legitimate and published nearly five years ago by a Syrian al-Qaeda affiliate, as discovered by the Associated Press.
Further proving that neither Trump nor Britain First are not good at warning about crimes being committed in Britain by Muslims, none of the three videos retweeted by Trump were filmed in the UK. The first video, which shows a man pushing a boy off the roof of a building, was filmed in Egypt in 2011 during clashes between pro- and anti-Islamist government protestors. The man (and others) were eventually sentenced to death in Egypt. The second video released by the al-Qaeda affiliate was filmed in Syria and shows a man smashing a statue of the Virgin Mary. Both videos were released by the Nusra Front in 2013.
The third video, which is not related to al-Qaeda, went viral in the Netherlands in May 2017. It shows two teenagers fighting. In news coverage of the video, religion was not mentioned. Despite Britain First, and therefore President Trump, declaring the video shows a “Muslim migrant,” the Dutch prosecution service said the boy, who was arrested after the video went viral, was born and raised in the Netherlands.
Somehow, President Trump managed to — at the same time — spread both fake news and al-Qaeda recruitment videos. Crazy.
(Via Associated Press)