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PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

Religion & belief fact checks

Explore claims publishers have checked about religion & belief. Read their original ratings and follow the evidence.

3,371 published reviews in this topic

dpaReligion & belief

Sigrid Kaag heeft zich tot de islam bekeerd.

Publisher’s rating: De post is onjuist. Sigrid Kaag is openlijk katholiek. In verschillende interviews vertelt ze daarover. Ook op de website van D66 staat dat ze katholiek is. Haar man is niet gelovig, hij is atheïst. Haar vier kinderen zijn gedoopt en drie hebben heilige communie gedaan. Daarnaast is de foto boven de tekst van het bericht gefotoshopt. Het beeld is geknipt uit een video van WNL. In de foto is een Palenstijnse vlag gefotoshopt. De post is dus in zijn geheel niet waar.

FACTLYReligion & belief

Molenbik town (Belgium) is the first European town with a 100 percent Muslim population

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns Molenbeek (also called Molenbeek-Saint-Jean), a municipality in Brussels, Belgium. The review says it found no credible reports supporting the assertion that the municipality’s population is entirely Muslim. It also notes that Belgium’s 2011 official census recorded Molenbeek’s population as 92,661, but did not provide an official breakdown of residents’ religion. A 2021 report from the Brussels Institute for Statistics and Analysis put the municipality’s population at about 98,000. To assess the 100 percent figure, the review compared estimates cited in reporting from several organizations. It describes estimates ranging from 25 to 45 percent: Reuters reported an estimate of 45 percent attributed to independent researchers; The New York Times cited 41 percent; the Goethe-Institut Brüssel gave a 2013 figure of 36,450 Muslim residents out of 94,650, or nearly 40 percent; and Bloomberg CityLab reported 25 to 30 percent. These figures differ, but none supports a wholly Muslim population. The review also distinguishes the population claim from the post’s other comments. It says it found no credible information for those other comments, while noting that Molenbeek had been connected with Islamist extremism in news coverage. That separate association does not establish the claimed religious composition. The evidence presented therefore contradicts the assertion that Molenbeek is 100 percent Muslim.

FACTLYReligion & belief

Photos of a Muslim boy who was allegedly beaten for drinking water inside a temple in Ghaziabad

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns photos of an injured boy circulated as showing the Muslim boy allegedly beaten for drinking water inside a temple near Dasna Devi Mandir in Ghaziabad. FACTLY examined whether those specific photos were connected to that incident. Its conclusion was that they were old images, not images of the boy in the Ghaziabad case. The review reports that a Google Reverse Image Search found the same photos uploaded by social media users in October 2020. It also says news websites reported that month that the child shown had been beaten by his father in Yemen’s Al Mahwit Governorate. The photos’ circulation before the Ghaziabad incident is the key evidence against the claim that they depicted that later incident. FACTLY qualified what could be established about the older images: it could not independently verify their location or context. Its conclusion was narrower—that the photos were old and therefore unrelated to the recent Ghaziabad incident. The review separately points readers to visuals of the Ghaziabad incident and reports that police had tweeted that the accused were arrested.

FACTLYReligion & belief

Video of birds doing pradakshina around the Mahakaleshwar temple in Ujjain. It happens every year on the day of Maha Shivratri

Publisher’s rating: MISLEADING

The claim is that a video shows birds performing pradakshina around Ujjain’s Mahakaleshwar temple, and that this happens every year on Maha Shivratri. The review reports that the birds’ circling is a regular occurrence at the temple, not something limited to that festival. It therefore finds no basis for treating the video as evidence of a yearly Maha Shivratri event. To check the video, the review says it found a News18 Hindi article about it. According to the review’s account, the News18 team went to the location shown in the video to verify its authenticity and found that flocks of birds regularly fly around the temple. The review also points to other similar videos of birds flying around the temple premises as evidence that the phenomenon is not unique to the festival. The review identifies the flocking behavior as murmuration, citing both a 2019 tweet by author Sanjeev Sanyal and the News18 article. Its conclusion is that the birds’ movement has no connection with Maha Shivratri. The evidence described challenges the claim’s asserted annual festival connection; it does not dispute that the video shows birds around the Ujjain temple.

FACTLYReligion & belief

Video of Muslim women singing Ram bhajan at a Masjid in Dubai

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a video said to show Muslim women singing a Ram bhajan inside a mosque in Dubai. FACTLY identifies the footage instead with a devotional event at Prashanthi Nilayam, in Puttaparthi, Andhra Pradesh, held at Sai Kulwant Hall in front of Sathya Sai Baba’s maha-samadhi. The location and event described in the review therefore do not match the claimed Dubai mosque setting. To trace the footage, the review says it ran screenshots through Yandex Reverse Image Search and found similar visuals associated with Sathya Sai Baba bhajans. It then located an extended version on the Sri Sathya Sai Official YouTube channel, titled “SARVA DHARMA SWAROOPA SAI” – ARABIAN CHOIR – 10 JULY 2012. The video description identifies the gathering as a pilgrimage by Sai Organisation members from Middle Eastern and Gulf countries at Prasanthi Nilayam. The review also records a qualification: the Sathya Sai Baba International Organisation told The Quint that not all participants were Muslims or Arabs, though some were. That detail supports the presence of some participants from the region, but does not establish the claim’s setting or description of the performance. The review concludes that the posted video is from Prashanthi Nilayam, not a mosque in Dubai.

Satya Priya BNReligion & belief

BJP leader's claim about cross, Narasimha Swami Idol located on same hillock

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The review examined viral images and posts claiming that a large cross was being installed on the Edlapadu hillock where a Narasimha Swami idol and Sitamma’s footprints were located. The posts also alleged that the construction encroached on a Hindu religious site. The investigation reports that the Guntur rural district police and the Narasaraopet Sub Collector rejected the key location claim: the cross and the worshipped sites were on different hillocks, so the cross was not being erected on the hillock containing the idol and footprints. The review describes the police as issuing a clarification and sharing a video of the hillock where the Narasimha Swami idol is located. It also reports the Sub Collector’s explanation that a church had applied for permission to construct a cross in the Yerrakonda area, but construction began before permission was granted, prompting action by the police commissionerate and the local Tahsildar. Thus, the reported issue with the construction was that it began before permission—not that it occupied the same hillock as the idol. The review gives a distance of at least half a kilometre between the idol’s location and the cross under construction. It also says the hill with Sitamma’s footprints was different from the hill with the cross. These location details support the review’s distinction between the claim of religious-site encroachment on the same hillock and the separate question of whether construction had been authorized.