Footage purported to show clashes outside Eurovision Song Contest is 15 years old
Video is from incident at 2009 Davis Cup in Malmö
CLAIM
Posts circulating online purported to show Muslim immigrants in Sweden destroying police property because of Israel’s participation in the Eurovision Song Contest, which took place in Malmö last weekend.
BACKGROUND
A number of posts circulating across both X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook on May 9 and 10 purported to show clashes during pro-Palestinian protests in Malmö at the edges of the Eurovision Song Contest in May 2024.
The posts all included a video that showed people, many wearing face coverings and some wearing keffiyehs — the scarf that has become a symbol of Palestinian resistance — attacking police vans outside what appeared to be a stadium.
Versions were posted on Facebook here and here, while a post on X, which had more than half a million views, was screenshot and shared on Facebook. All of the posts shared nearly identical text captions to that of the X post.
The participation of Israel in the contest was seen in some quarters as highly controversial, amid the country’s ongoing war in Gaza in which over 35,000 Palestinians have been killed.
The competition, which is organised by the European Broadcasting Union each year, drew protests in both Sweden, where it was being hosted, and in the other participating countries.
In Ireland, for example, a protest took place outside the national broadcaster RTÉ before the contest kicked off, with a call to boycott the musical event while Israel was still allowed to participate.
The situation was also tense inside the confines of the competition, with several artists pledging to make statements through their costuming and performances, although some of these attempts were halted by the organisers who said the event is “non-political”.
The protests drew widespread coverage around the world, with Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg becoming one of the most high-profile protesters outside the Malmö venue as the song contest was getting underway.
METHOD
The post on X offered our first avenue for learning the source of this footage. It was a reshare of a video by Visegrád 24, a large current affairs content aggregator account. From our previous fact-checking and social newsgathering, we know that this account frequently posts material that belongs to other news outlets and unsourced UGC.
The Visegrád version of the clip was posted on May 9, 2024, with a caption that referenced the Eurovision Song Contest — but said “a mob of 300 tried to storm the stadium when Israel came to play Davis Cup tennis in Malmö in 2009.” That post was viewed at least 1.7 million times.
A reverse image search on the clip revealed that the date and location described in that caption was true. A news report on YouTube featured the same video with the same voiceover, and was described as showing the situation outside the 2009 Davis Cup in Malmö, an event that descended into riots and even has its own Wikipedia page.
From this analysis, we can conclude that the video emerged in May 2024 in a post by Visegrád attributing it to Malmö in 2009, but was misrepresented in subsequent reposts which spread over to Facebook.
RATING
The video is 15 years old and was repeatedly miscaptioned to claim that the unrest took place at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest in Malmö.
SOURCES
Guardian News (2024). Eurovision: Greta Thunberg joins thousands in pro-Palestine protest before final. YouTube. [Accessed 16 May 2024].
Facebook.com. (2023). Richard Gibbons – Muslim migrants who were given shelter in Sweden… [online] [Accessed 16 May 2024].
Facebook.com. (2023). Stuart Page – Muslim migrants who were given shelter in Sweden 🇸🇪… [online] [Accessed 16 May 2024].
X (formerly Twitter). (2024). Available at: Muslim migrants who were given shelter in Sweden… [online] [Accessed 16 May 2024].
Facebook.com. (2023). Jimmy Haigh – Don’t blame me. I never invited them in…. [online] [Accessed 16 May 2024].
X (formerly Twitter). (2024). Available at: Some say the Swedish police convoy (100 officers) protecting Israeli singer Eden Golan… [Accessed 16 May 2024].
Reuters (2009). Anti-Israel protest staged at Sweden tennis match. [online] Reuters. [Accessed 16 May 2024].
SYDSVENSKAN (2009). Kravaller och stenkastning i Malmö. YouTube. [Accessed 16 May 2024].