Far-right influencers ring in Christmas season with mischaracterised market video
- Published on December 8, 2025 at 10:27
- 3 min read
- By Liesa PAUWELS, Katharina ZWINS, AFP Netherlands, AFP Germany
- Translation and adaptation Dene-Hern CHEN , AFP Australia
After thousands of anti-immigration protesters took to the streets in Australian cities, a video was misleadingly shared in social media posts claiming it showed young Muslim men intimidating Germans at a Christmas market. The footage, filmed in December 2024, in fact shows people passing through a Christmas market in Essen, Germany, as they celebrated the toppling of the former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad -- a demonstration the local police and the city's tourism department told AFP were peaceful.
"This is what unchecked immigration without integration looks like and it's hitting our traditions hard!" reads part of the caption of a Facebook video shared on the "Australia's Fight" page on November 17, 2025.
According to the caption, it was filmed in Essen, Germany, last Christmas and shows "Hundreds of young Muslim men marching through a packed Christmas market, chanting 'Allahu Akbar' and the Islamic declaration of faith while waving Palestinian flags".
"No outright violence, sure but the intimidation factor? Off the charts!" it says.
The video was also shared by another Australian influencer who frequently posts anti-immigration rhetoric, with the caption: "Muslims intimidate Germans at a Christmas Market in Germany."
"We need to stand up to this in Australia before it's too late," read a comment on one of the posts.
Another said: "Deport them all."
The same video circulated in similar TikTok, Facebook and X posts among European users, with some claiming it portrayed migrants "storming" a German Christmas market.
These fairs are a beloved tradition in small towns across Germany, but deadly attacks in recent years -- like in December 2024 when a Saudi man rammed an SUV through a crowd at a market in eastern Magdeburg and killed six people -- have sparked an ongoing debate about the safety of such events (archived link).
Anti-migrant rhetoric has become more prevalent in the wake of Australia's last election in May -- which pitted Prime Minister Anthony Albanese against his right-leaning conservative opponent Peter Dutton, who ran on a platform of slashing immigration and cracking down on crime (archived link).
There were also several anti-immigration rallies held in major cities in recent months, while a government report in September found that Australia has failed to tackle persistent Islamophobia, which "has intensified over the past two decades" (archived here, here and here).
While the circulating video does show people walking through a Christmas market in Essen in December 2024, local police and the city's tourism department told AFP the demonstration was peaceful.
Syrians celebrating
A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the misleadingly shared video found the same clip has circulated on social media since December 2024 in posts that said it showed Syrians crossing through a Christmas market in Essen (archived here and here).
A closer analysis of the video also shows that the flags are Syrian independence flags, contrary to posts that misleadingly claimed they were Palestinian flags (archived here and here).
At the time, thousands of Syrian nationals -- many of them refugees displaced by Syria's civil war -- rallied in cities across Europe to rejoice at the fall of the Assad family dynasty that had ruled the country with an iron fist for over half a century (archived link).
Germany is home to Europe's largest Syrian diaspora community, having taken in nearly a million people during the country's decade-plus-long civil war (archived link). According to a local news report, an estimated 11,000 people celebrated Assad's fall in Essen alone (archived link).
But there were no official reports of any violence or intimidation at the Essen Christmas market.
A police statement about the celebrations also stated that "the participants were emotional and exuberant, but for the most part, they behaved peacefully" and there were "no significant incidents" (archived link). A statement from Essen's mayor echoed those conclusions (archived link).
Moreover, a spokesperson for the Essen police told AFP on November 20: "The demonstration was largely peaceful and there were hardly any disturbances."
A spokesperson for the city's tourism department, responsible for organising the Christmas market, also told AFP on November 20 that "there were no riots, everything was peaceful".
AFP has previously fact-checked claims related to Christmas and immigration in Australia.
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