Protesters supporting Palestinians waved political party's flag, not Italy's | Fact check
Nate TrelaThe claim: Protesters mistakenly brought Italian flags to a protest in support of Palestinians
An Oct. 21 Instagram post (, ) shows a video of a group marching down a street carrying a pro-Palestine banner and flags with red, white and green stripes.
“Protesters In Kerala India Accidentally Brought The Italian Flag Instead Of The Palestine Flag To Pro-Hamas Protest,” reads on-screen text included in the video.
The post was liked more than 30,000 times in three weeks.
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Our rating: False
The protesters are carrying the flag of the Welfare Party of India, not the Italian flag.
Protesters brought flag of political party
The video shows an Oct. 17 in the coastal city of Kozhikode in the Indian state of Kerala. It was organized by the Kerala State Committee of the Welfare Party of India, and the banner the group carries reads in part, "Welfare Party Kerala."
The tri-color flag seen throughout the clip is the , not .
The state committee , formerly Twitter, about the rally and how similar the flags look.
“They claim that the national flag of Italy was used instead of the Palestinian flag in the aforementioned rally,” the post reads in part. “This campaign is rooted in the similarities between the colors of the Welfare Party flag and the national flag of Italy.”
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The Welfare Party’s tri-color flag can be found throughout and on a .
ӣƵ reached out to the user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
, and also debunked the claim.
Our fact-check sources:
- Welfare Party Kerala, Oct. 22,
- Welfare Party of India, accessed Nov. 16,
- Welfare Party of India (Flickr), uploaded March 9, 2015,
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