DigitEye India Fact Checkers
A video of a man who slaps another man for saying “Allahu Akbar” is going viral on social media. The claims that are going viral along with the video allege that the man in the frame is the mayor of a city in Denmark. The video shows the man speaking to someone behind the camera and walking down the street. As they are walking another man enters the frame and says “Allahu Akbar”. This is when he is slapped. The claim that is going viral reads,
The Mayor of a city in Denmark was having a walking discussion with his subordinates, when a fanatic Muslim interrupted the proceedings with “Allah hu Akbar”. The Mayor’s response was immediate and befitting!
Digiteye India received a request to fact check this viral video on WhatsApp.
FACT CHECK
The Digiteye India team used inVID – a video verification tool – to break the video down into multiple keyframes. We used these keyframes and ran a Reverse Image Search on Google. Reverse Image Search results revealed that the video had been shared earlier as well with a different claim. In a tweet dating back to November 1, 2023, it was claimed that the mayor of Croatia’s city slapped a Muslim for yelling ‘Allah Akbar’ in the middle of the broadcast.
We dug around further to find more clues and found out that the man in the frame was not the mayor of Croatia nor the mayor of any city in Denmark. The man in the frame is Stefan Hentschel, a former German boxer and brothel owner. We used this clue and conducted further keyword searches.
The results led us to this video that was posted on Dailymotion – a video-sharing website – 17 years ago. The video shows Stefan slapping the man but the man did not say “Allahu Akbar.” The audio was doctored onto the viral video.
We found another video on YouTube that was uploaded on November 6, 2009. The video has Stefan’s audio in German and the description reads, “Stefan Hentschel – Memories of a pimp, description of the famous scene from Gerd Kroske’s film “The Boxing Prince.”
An article posted by Spiegel on December 28, 2006 sheds light on this viral incident. In their report they wrote that the incident took place in Große Freiheit. The article translates the video and adds, “With his left hand emphatically casual in the trouser pocket of his dark suit, the 100-pound man reminisces about the old and golden times of the neighborhood, when 27 girls still went to work for him, when an intrusive passer-by in sweatpants sways into the picture. “Do you have a problem? – Go ahead!” Hentschel barks at the man, raises his right fist and punches him – boom! – right in the face.”
These clues helped us find out that the scene is a 2002 documentary about the boxer Norbert Grupe – Der Boxprinz.
The audio has been doctored into the video.
CLAIM: A mayor of a Danish city slapped a man who said Allahu Akbar in front of the camera.
CONCLUSION: The man in the frame is not the mayor of any Danish city. He is Stefan Hentschel, a former German boxer and brothel owner. The video is from a 2002 documentary when Stefan slapped a man who was creating a nuisance during the broadcast.
RATING: ??? – Misinterpretation — 
