This video shows protesters chanting pro-India slogans at a rally in northern India

The video was shared in this Facebook post published on December 28, 2019. It has been viewed more than 50,000 times.

The 12-second clip shows protesters chanting slogans and waving green flags.

Below is a screenshot of the misleading post:

Image

The post’s caption states: “So-Called Peaceful Anti-CAA Protestors in Lucknow Raising ‘Long Live Pakistan’ Slogans!”

CAA refers to India's Citizenship Amendment Act, a law passed on December 11, 2019, which grants Indian citizenship to non-Muslim immigrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. Critics labeled the law anti-Muslim, resulting in violent nationwide protests, as reported by AFP here on January 7, 2020.

The same video was also published here, here and here on Facebook, here and here on Twitter, and here and here on YouTube, with a similar claim.

The claim is false; the video shows protesters chanting pro-India slogans at an anti-citizenship law protest.

The video shows a December 13, 2019, protest organised by the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) party’s Lucknow office in the north Indian city of Lucknow.

A longer video of the same protest was published here on Twitter on December 29, 2019. The video in the misleading posts corresponds with the Twitter video from the 10-second to the 22-second mark.

Protesters in the longer Twitter video can be heard chanting “Akbar Owaisi Zindabad, Kashif Sahab Zindabad, Hindustan Zindabad”, which translates to English as: “Long live Akbar Owaisi, Long live Kashif sir, Long live India.”

#GoToPakistan
Gour se suno akbar owaisi
zindabad (2)
kashif saab zindabad (2)
kashif saab zindabad (2)
hindustan zindabad (2)
kashif ahmad is the lucknow chief pic.twitter.com/ymtcUwWUeY

— Illah_zulfiqaar (@IllahZulfiqaar) December 28, 2019

Akbar Owaisi refers to Akbaruddin Owaisi, Indian politician and leader of the AIMIM party. Kashif is the aforementioned leader of the AIMIM party’s Lucknow division.

The AIMIM’s Lucknow office chief Kashif Ahmad denied reports of pro-Pakistan slogans being raised during the protest in a phone conversation with AFP on January 8, 2020.

“That claim is fake, there were no pro-Pakistan slogans raised in our entire rally. Our supporters only raised anti-citizenship law slogans, pro-party and pro-party, pro-party leadership, including my name, and pro-India slogans,” he said.

Ahmad shared four photos from the protest on his Twitter account here. No pro-Pakistan placards can be seen in these photos. 

लखनऊ में हुए 13दिसम्बर को AIMIM के CAB औऱ NRC के खिलाफ शांति प्रदर्शन में लिखी गयी हुई FIR पर लखनऊ पुलिस और उत्तर प्रदेश सरकार का शुक्रिया अदा करता हूँ।@asadowaisi@ShaukatAli_77 @warispathan pic.twitter.com/mtuvh8Yo8b

— Kashif Ahmad (@KashifA71249481) January 4, 2020

Another video of the same rally uploaded here on YouTube on December 13, 2019, shows protesters chanting “India is ours”. 

Similar videos of the December 13 protest were published on YouTube here, here, here, here, here and here but none showed protesters holding or chanting pro-Pakistan slogans.

According to this report by the English-language Indian daily newspaper Indian Express published December 18, 2019, Lucknow police filed sedition charges against protesters at the December 13 rally “for allegedly raising anti-national and objectionable slogans”. 

Police later dropped these charges, citing a “‘clerical’ mistake”, as reported by English-language Indian newspaper Hindustan Times here on December 18, 2019.

The Indian Penal Code defines sedition as committed when “whoever, by words, either spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representation, or otherwise, brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards the Government estab­lished by law”. 

Image