Days after a 47-year-old French teacher Samuel Patty was beheaded by an Islamic terrorist in Paris, an image has been doing rounds on the internet claiming that the deceased teacher had participated in a rally welcoming ‘Refugees’ to France.
Netizens took to Twitter to share an image of protestors in a mask holding placards that read ‘Refugees Welcome’. One social media user said that the person carrying the placard was none other than the deceased teacher Samuel Patty himself.
The social media user alleged that Patty did not know that the refugees he was welcoming to France would repay him in Shariah way. The social media user insinuated that the very refugees Samuel Patty had welcomed to France, beheaded him on the streets of Paris.
Another social media user tweeted the same image to claim that the guy in the middle holding a placard and welcoming the refugees was Samuel Patty himself.
The social media was hinting that in the past Patty had happily welcomed refugees who entered France but little did he know that the same refugees will behead him.
The above tweet has been shared aggressively on various social media platforms making claims that Samuel Patty had participated in a pro-Refugee rally in France in the past.
Fact check:
However, the claim made by several social media users that Samuel Patty had participated in a rally welcoming refugees to France is false.
If one looks at the image carefully, one can see the participants in the rally wearing masks. Thus, it can be said that the image is of a recent rally, especially during the post-COVID times, contrary to the claims that this rally was held ‘a few years ago’.
A comparison of the images of Patty and the image of a person present at the rally also shows that there is no similarity in looks between the two.
The text in the placards carried by the demonstrators have text in English, and if it was really organised in France, the placards, or at least some of them, should have text in French.
Rally was held in UK, not France
Actually, the rally seen in the image was not organised in France as claimed by social media users. The rally was held in Folkestone, Kent, United Kingdom early this week.
Good chance, a pro-refugee group which hold such rallies in support of refugees, on October 17 tweeted the same image of three people holding placards that read, “Refugees Welcome”. The tweet was shared on Twitter a day after Samuel Patty’s death in France. A police van in the background reading “Kent Police” can also be seen in the image.
Today the Good Chance team are in Folkestone to #WelcomeRefugees. The people of Kent are out in force at the Napier Barracks to let people know that they are WELCOME @_KRAN_ pic.twitter.com/Q9EbiR2YNQ
— Good Chance (@GoodChanceCal) October 17, 2020
A website called Kent Live also reported a series of photographs of the pro-refugee event that was held at Folkestone, Kent on October 17 welcoming refugees.
“Hundreds of people lined the streets in Folkestone to welcome refugees today. Asylum seekers are currently being housed at Napier Barracks following their arrival in the UK,” said the report.
From the above images and reports, it can be stated that social media users, who are making claims that Samuel Patty had participated in a pro-refugee rally in the past and got killed by the same refugees later, is wrong on several counts.
Patty, a history teacher in the greater Paris area, was beheaded by a Muslim immigrant terrorist on Friday after he had shown his students cartoons of the Prophet of Islam from Charlie Hebdo during a class debate on freedom of expression. A Muslim youth had stabbed a 47-year-old teacher in his throat while shouting “Allahu Akbar”.
