STORY UPDATED: check for updates below.
Did a bystander or cohort film a spontaneous incident when a Muslim immigrant urinated on packages of pork in a Dutch supermarket? No, that's not true: The video is staged and was posted by a TikTok creator. The same creator posted several prank videos showing a man, wearing the same clothing, pretending to urinate in inappropriate places.
The video was originally posted on TikTok by @buurtwachtt on December 14, 2023. The video (archived here) was reposted on X, formerly Twitter, on December 17, 2023 by Britain First party leader Paul Golding @GoldingBF. The post was captioned:
Muslim immigrant in Holland urinates on the pork section of the supermarket as another films saying 'we don't eat pork' 😡
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Tue Dec 19 23:46:05 2023 UTC)
Another instance of the video (archived here) was reposted on X on December 17, 2023, by @RadioGenoa, an account that posts mainly anti-immigrant content and uses the term "cultural enricher" frequently. It was captioned:
Cultural enricher urinates on pork in Netherlands.
The term cultural enrichment may have a different meaning depending on who is using it. It could mean education in arts and culture, or the social benefits or changes realized through diversity. But the term "cultural enricher" is sometimes used satirically as a dog whistle by the far right. Urban Dictionary defines cultural enrichment as:
Satirical term for invasion or general violence caused by pople of different culture.
On December 17, 2023, Geert Wilders, a Dutch politician with anti-Islamic views and the founder of the Dutch Party for Freedom (Partij voor de Vrijheid; PVV) retweeted the video with the caption, translated by Google, "Another ten seats."
(Source: X screenshot taken on Tue Dec 19 19:40:16 2023 UTC)
The caption of the original @buurtwachtt TikTok posting (below) is, translated by Google, "You can also go too far...." Buurtwacht is a Dutch word meaning neighborhood watch. The Dutch supermarket chain Albert Heijn is tagged in the caption, and the standard TikTok hashtags for the "for you page" are also included:
Je kan ook te ver gaan.... @Albert Heijn #fyp #voorjou
The account @buurtwachtt has posted a series of prank videos including urination and other disruptive themes such as pulling a fire alarm. These videos clearly do not represent a random or representative encounter with a Muslim immigrant. In the videos one or more men is filmed from behind, as if they are urinating. There is no evidence offered that they are actually urinating or that they are either Muslim or an immigrant. In several videos the man is wearing the same navy blue vest over a gray hoodie, as he appears in the supermarket video.
The Lead Stories composite image below shows scenes from other videos by this creator. Two TikTok videos (here and here) each tagged the account of the @basicfit_ gym. One shows the man standing on a bench in a locker room seemingly urinating in a corner, and the other shows a man standing on a counter seemingly urinating into a sink. A YouTube video from @Buurtwacht shows the man in the blue vest pulling a fire alarm at 7:44 minutes in. An Instagram reel, also tagging Basic Fit, posted by @buurtwachtt on December 11, 2023, shows the man in the blue vest facing a bank of orange lockers as if urinating.
(Source: Lead Stories composite image with TikTok, YouTube and Instagram screenshots taken on Tue Dec 19 18:31:56 2023 UTC)
Two of the urination videos were discussed in a short article in skoften.net on December 13, 2023, even before the supermarket video was posted. The writer of that article, in questioning if the act of urination in the sink video was real or simulated, points out a detail of the video -- there's a shine reflecting on the tile wall that resembles a plastic water bottle.
Lead Stories reached out by email to the media relations team at Albert Heijn for comment and received a reply on December 20, 2023, from External Communications spokesperson Pauline Van Den Brandhof. She wrote:
We've seen the video. We have conducted internal research based on this.
We have not received any reports of nuisance about this from our stores.
Updates:
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2023-12-20T17:50:50Z 2023-12-20T17:50:50Z Updated with December 20, 2023, statement from Albert Heijn grocery spokesperson.
