FACT CHECK: Does This Video Show Germans Protesting The Country’s COVID-19 Restrictions?
A video shared on Facebook claims to show Germans protesting the country’s COVID-19 restrictions by blocking traffic with tractors.
Verdict: False
The video appears to show a protest that occurred in November 2019, months before the coronavirus pandemic began.
Fact Check:
Germany recently announced new restrictions for unvaccinated people, such as barring them from nonessential shops and certain other venues, BBC News reported. Since then, some social media users have been sharing a video that appears to show hundreds of tractors with their lights flashing blocking a road. One post claimed the video showed Germans protesting the new COVID-19 restrictions.
“Berlin, Germany – Germans Protesting the Vaccine Passports and the Nonsense,” reads the post’s caption. “Block entry points to and from Berlin with Tractors and Larger Farming Equipment … it is reported over 10,000 tractors clogged roadways…”
The video, however, was not recorded recently. Through a reverse image search, Check Your Fact found the footage was shared on Twitter as early as November 2019. For example, one German-language Twitter account posted it on Nov. 26, 2019. (RELATED: Does This Photo Show A Recent Protest In Germany?)
Sammelpunkt des Bayern-Thüringer Konvois. Beeindruckend Bilder #Bauerndemo #landschafftverbindung #sternfahrtberlin pic.twitter.com/kzhh4tTwGb
— Rene Rempt 🥕❎ (@RemptRene) November 26, 2019
The timing of the video’s appearance on social media would suggest it depicts a farmer’s protest that, according to the Associated Press, occurred in Berlin on Nov. 26, 2019. The demonstration was in response to agricultural environmental regulations imposed by the German government and included about 10,000 farmers and some 5,000 tractors, the outlet reported. The video shared on both Facebook and Twitter resembles images of the event published by the German news outlets Nordkurier and Nordwest-Zeitung.
The first COVID-19 case was not detected in Germany until January 2020, according to DW, and the country did not initiate its vaccination program until December 2020, CNBC reported.
