A video attributed to “recent anti-Iranian demonstrations in Iraq”.. What is its truth?

- Social media accounts circulated a video clip as being linked to anti-Iranian demonstrations in Iraq recently. The video shows scenes of a crowd of demonstrators in Tahrir Square in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.

By splitting the video into still shots and using a reverse search, we found similar versions of it last April. The Associated Press published a video on its YouTube channel, saying that demonstrators gathered on April 4 at the “Freedom Monument” in Tahrir Square in Baghdad, to denounce the war launched by Israel and the United States against Iran, and the attacks targeting other Islamic countries in the region.

The demonstrators raised Iraqi flags and chanted slogans against America and Israel, including: “No, no, to America, no, no, to Israel,” according to the Associated Press. At that time, the demonstration came at the invitation of the prominent Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who urged his followers to gather to denounce the US-Israeli strikes on Iran and the region.

Similar footage is available at the time on social media, with comments, some of which say: “The Sadrist movement’s demonstration in Tahrir Square in central Baghdad.” The video's circulation coincided with thousands demonstrating in Tahrir and Victory Squares in central Baghdad, on Sunday, on the seventh anniversary of the October 2019 protests.

The Civil Movement and the Iraqi Communist Party had called for these demonstrations, while supporters of the Sadrist movement were absent from the event. Despite the old video being circulated, last Sunday's demonstrations were not free of chants against the United States and Iran alike, amid calls to remove Iraq from the circle of conflict in the region.