Old AFP photo shows Russian priest, not Israeli clergyman, blessing firearms for new recruits
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on May 25, 2021 at 08:48
- 3 min read
- By Segun OLAKOYENIKAN, AFP Nigeria
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The photo, which appears in numerous social media posts including on Facebook, started circulating following the latest round of violence that erupted between Israeli forces and Palestinians in May 2021.
“Israelite clergyman blessing the holy guns with the holy bible to kill wicked people (sic),” reads the Facebook post, shared more than 800 times since it was published on May 18, 2021. “Who says these people are not the chosen people of God? I will like to visit holy Israel before I make heaven! God lives in Israel!!! (sic)”
The clergyman, wearing a gold cassock, appears to perform a religious rite next to a table full of weapons.
The image has also been shared in other posts alongside the same claim circulated by supporters of Nigeria’s outlawed separatist movement Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), whose leader Nnamdi Kanu believes the Igbo people in the country’s southeast are a lost tribe of Israel.
However, the photo has nothing to do with the deadly Israeli-Palestinian conflict and was taken years ago in Russia.
Russian Orthodox priest
A reverse image search revealed that the original picture can be found in AFP’s online archives. AFP photographer Danil Semyonov took the photo on January 29, 2008, at a weapons’ presentation event for new police recruits in southwestern Russia.
“A Russian Orthodox priest blesses new Kalashnikov machine guns during a ceremony presenting the new weapons to recently enlisted members of Russia’s elite ‘OMON’ riot police corps in Stavropol,” the caption reads.
The word “OMON” is seen on the badge of the uniformed man standing next to the priest. OMON is an acronym for a special police unit of Russia’s national guard in charge of riots or protests.
AFP has extensively covered the violence which erupted on May 10, 2021, between Israel and Islamist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
A ceasefire came into effect on May 21, 2021, as AFP reported.
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