In April 2020, a video has been shared numerous times on Facebook and Twitter. The viral video allegedly shows corpses in body bags at an apartment that is home to an Islamic group in New York.
Misleading video
The post claim that the victims died in the apartment after contracting the coronavirus because they ignored social distancing rules. However, the claims are misleading, as the footage shows body bags at an Islamic funeral home in New York during the coronavirus pandemic.
According to a spokesperson for the mortuary who talked to AFP, the deceased were people of many faiths. The video was shared on Facebook on April 24, 2020, and it lasted for three minutes and 26 seconds.
The caption of the post reads: "The Dawah group USA (similar to India Tablighi Jamat) announced they were not afraid of Covid19 and would go everywhere even if they had the virus. What is the result now in New York? The Dawah Group is littered with dead bodies inside their own apartments. This virus is unsparing and demands that we take care of."
According to the Collins Dictionary, the term Dawah means the practice or policy of conveying the message of Islam to non-Muslims. There is no Dawah Group in the United States.
India Tablighi Jamat is a reference to a gathering that Tablighi Jamaat, which is an Islamic revivalist movement, organized in Delhi in March 2020. The event was said to be a hotspot for COVID-19 after being linked to dozens of infections and several deaths, according to AFP.
What the video shows
The footage shows body bags at the Islamic International Funeral Services, which is a mortuary located in Brooklyn that offers Islamic funeral services. Two phone numbers can be seen on the front window at the video's three-minute 15-second mark, and it matches the numbers that are listed on the website of the company.
A spokesperson for the Islamic International Funeral Services told AFP on April 29 that the video was recorded inside the company premises. The spokesperson clarified that the dead bodies that were kept inside were of COVID-19 victims from all religions. The spokesperson added that they have kept the bodies of COVID-19 victims irrespective of their religion in the wake of the rising death tolls due to the coronavirus pandemic.
There was also a separate keyword search that was found that showed the Islamic International Funeral Services was featured in a YouTube video published by Ruptly, a German-based news agency which is part of the Russian-government funded news network RT.
The video as a title of "USA: Funeral services overwhelmed as coronavirus deaths top 4,000 in NYC." The video shows the same front window of the funeral home and it talked about the issue of overloaded mortuaries due to the pandemic.
The video's caption reads: "Footage shows vans arriving and leaving Schaefer Funeral Home and Islamic International Funeral Services in Brooklyn, with signs outside the building reading, "Due to the coronavirus there are absolutely no families allowed in the building. We are more than happy to serve you by phone, we apologize for any inconvenience."
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