A video showing a large banner depicting Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei being unfurled at New York’s Brooklyn Museum during a pro-Palestinian protest is digitally altered.
Pro-Palestinian protesters took over parts of the Brooklyn Museum on May 31 and hung a banner above the main entrance that said, “Free Palestine, Divest From Genocide.”
A spokesperson for the Brooklyn Museum told Reuters via email that “no banners with Iran’s leader were seen on the museum’s facade during the May 31 protest.”
The edited video was
posted on social media, opens new tab
with captions such as “The pro-Hamas mob drops a huge banner of the Iranian supreme leader outside the Brooklyn Museum. Couldn’t make it up,” and “Brainless mob is raising a large picture of the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on the facade of the Brooklyn Museum, in response to the leader’s thanks to the American students who are demonstrating for ‘justice in Palestine.’”
Reuters Image
The video consists of separate clips that show the banner with Khamenei’s picture with the text “Supreme Leader” and “Thank you American boys and girls!” being unfurled, a person descending on a rope, and NYPD officers rushing through a crowd, followed by the text stating “The SUPREME LEADER appreciates your support.”
The original unedited videos captured at the
Brooklyn Museum, opens new tab
were posted on Instagram on May 31.
The
is from a video posted by New York-based photographer and filmmaker Adil Rahman and shows a smaller banner hung from the museum facade’s cornice with only the text, “Free Palestine. Divest From Genocide.”
Rahman said in an email that the video being shared online was edited and that no such Khamenei banner was hung by any of the protesters that day.
Anadolu Agency’s New York-based video journalist Lokman Vural Elibol posted a video which contains the
showing a person descending from the cornice on a rope and police officers arriving. The clip
in posts from Anadolu Agency’s
official Instagram, opens new tab
accounts.
VERDICT
Altered. The video showing a banner of Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at the Brooklyn Museum amid a pro-Palestinian protest has been edited to add the banner with the image of Khamenei.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work.
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