Claim that Danish king waved Palestinian flag to pro-Gaza protesters from palace balcony is false
The video does not show the King of Denmark at his residence
CLAIM
A video was posted to X purporting to show King Frederik X of Denmark waving a Palestinian flag to a crowd of Pro-Gaza protesters from a balcony.
BACKGROUND
The video was posted on May 12 to an account with some 6000 followers. At the time of writing, it had been viewed 440,100 times, received 4,200 likes and had been reposted 1,100 times. The caption (in French) accompanying the video reads ” The King of Denmark, King Frederik X, waves the Palestinian flag from his balcony as he greets hundreds of protesters demonstrating in Copenhagen in solidarity with the people of Palestine.”
METHOD
To find out if this is, indeed the Danish King on a balcony in Copenhagen, we first did a Google search asking the question “Where does King Frederik live” (in Danish “Hvor bor Kong Frederik). This leads us to the page of the official site of the Danish royal family that provides information about the king. Here it is stated that the royal couple reside in Frederik VIII’s Palace at Amalienborg, Copenhagen and also sometimes use the Chancellery at Fredensborg Castle in Fredensborg, which is north of Copenhagen.
Staying on the site of the Danish royal family, we go the section where information is provided about the castles of the royal family. Here it is stated that Amalienborg consists of four identical palaces. The two palaces seen in this screengrab bear no resemblance to the building seen in the video:
A look on the same page at Fredensborg Slot reveals that it, too, bears no resemblance with the building in the video:
So the video doesn’t show the king on the balcony of one of his palaces, but could he have waved the flag somewhere else? Let’s have a look at the official photo of the king:
Comparing that with a close-up of the person waving the flag in the video, it become clear that it is definitely not the king:
So, the video is not filmed at a Danish royal palace and doesn’t show the Danish king. So where was it filmed? A reverse image search led us to another version of the video in higher resolution posted to TikTok one day before the X version. That video also carries the claim that it is filmed in Denmark, and the Arabic writing claims it’s the Danish king seen in the video:
In this version, it is possible to make out the letters on the building beside the one where the man is standing on the balcony.
After a few views to mitigate the obstacle the graphics on the screen presents, it becomes clear that the writing says “Malmö högre läroverk för flickor” in Swedish. Translated to English this means “”Malmö higher education centre for girls.” A search for the former girls’ school’s address brings us to the national Swedish archives where we learn that an address associated with the school is Slottsgatan 38. We search for the address on Google Maps and after taking a short look around we find the buildings shown in the video at Slottsgatan 31:
Based on this analysis, we can establish that the video that was posted does not show the King of Denmark waving a Palestinian flag. Malmo has been the scene of massive pro-Palestinian demonstrations during the Eurovision Song Contest that was held there.
A search for demonstrations, Eurovision and Malmo eventually brought us to this tweet filmed by a protester who participated in a demonstration there that week and came across the man on the balcony. The tweet was posted in response to a post sharing the claim about the Danish king.
RATING
The claim is false. The video does not show the King of Denmark at his residence, but was filmed in Malmo during the week of the Eurovision Song Contest.
SOURCES
X (formerly Twitter). (2024). Available at: The King of Denmark, King Frederik X, waves the Palestinian flag from a balcony [Accessed 16 May 2024].
Kongehuset.dk. (2024). Kongehuset. [online] Available at: https://www.kongehuset.dk/ [Accessed 16 May 2024].
Tiktok.com. (2024). [online] Available at: #DANMARKS, #GAZA [Accessed 16 May 2024].
Riksarkivet.se. (2024). H Maria Stenkula – Svenskt Biografiskt Lexikon. [online] Available at: https://sok.riksarkivet.se/sbl/Presentation.aspx?id=20140 [Accessed 16 May 2024].
X (formerly Twitter). (2024). Available at: I’m sorry but this is literally not the king of Denmark [Accessed 16 May 2024].