Festive Season, Familiar Target: How a Recycled Video Was Used to Stoke Anti-Muslim Hate

As Christmas approaches, familiar tactics of stoking communal hostility have begun to surface online. During the Christmas season of 2025, a 20-second video circulated widely on Facebook through accounts belonging to Malayalis. The posts claimed that the footage showed Muslims setting fire to a Christmas tree in an incident allegedly taking place in London. However, there are no reports from credible news organisations or official sources confirming any such event in London. Verification shows that the video is not recent and in fact originates from a 2016 incident in Brussels, making the claim misleading.

Why the claim is misleading?

On Wednesday, December 17, 2025, Shikha Raghavan Thoppil, the account associated with Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) Delhi, according to the profile intro on Facebook, shared a video that allegedly shows radical Islamists burning a Christmas Tree in London. The Malayalam caption of the post translates to,”The scene of Jihadis burning a Christmas tree installed in London city.

As of December 22, the post garnered 217 likes, 96 shares, and 57 comments.

Most comments under the posts targeted Muslims, portraying them as so intolerant that they would allegedly resort to destroying a Christmas tree. Some users claimed that Christians were “getting a taste of their own medicine,” while others blamed what they described as weak immigration policies in the United Kingdom and Europe, arguing that these policies had effectively given Muslim immigrants a free pass.

A Facebook user commented, “This is the outcome for the British now, who previously utilized wealth and influence to convert Indians and individuals from other regions to Christianity.” Another remark in Malayalam conveys, “The current state of the land where the sun never sets.” One user mentioned that Christian priests are protected in India due to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) being in power.

A right-wing meme account on Instagram, prince_vegeta_v2, also shared the video on December 17.

Amplifying stereotypes and communal prejudices, the comment section was flooded with abusive remarks portraying Islam and Muslims as inherently violent. Many comments echoed familiar tropes, using the misleading video to fuel hostility and reinforce Islamophobic narratives during the Christmas season.

How did we verify?

We performed a keyword search using relevant keywords such as “London,” “Christmas Tree,” and “burned,” and found no credible media reports or government sources corroborating the viral claim of an attack on a Christmas Tree in London.Subsequently, we analysed the keyframes of the viral video and performed a reverse image search, which led us to a RT International report from January 5, 2016, carrying the keyframes.

We found that the incident was covered by the Australian news outlet news.com.au on January 3, 2016.

Additionally, La Dernière Heure, a leading French-language Belgian daily newspaper, reported on January 1, 2016, that the incident took place on December 31, 2015—New Year’s Eve—at Place du Conseil in Anderlecht, Belgium.

Additionally, wegeolocated the viral video and clarified that the incident occurred in Anderlecht, Brussels, and not in London.

The analysis of the viral video indicates that the social media accounts on Facebook and Instagram shared an old video from Brussels with the misleading claim that it shows a recent incident from London.