A photo shows Nadia Whittome MP and others posing for a photo with placards saying “rapists welcome” and “stand up for rapists”.
This has been edited. The original image shows the placards actually said “refugees welcome” and “stand up to racism”.
A photo being shared online appears to show three people, including Labour MP for Nottingham East, Nadia Whittome, with placards saying “rapists welcome” and “stand up for rapists”. But the text on these placards has been edited.
The photo shows three people smiling, including Ms Whittome and another person who are holding these placards. It has been shared on X, Instagram and Facebook, with some versions cropped to show only Ms Whittome or the other person holding a placard.
But the photo has been edited—this is not what the placards actually said.
Ms Whittome’s office confirmed to Full Fact that the photo had been edited, and shared the original with us. This shows the placards actually saying “refugees welcome” and “stand up to racism”.
These placards display the logo for the campaign group Stand Up To Racism in the top left corner, and the same signs can be seen in many photos of protests organised by the group. The group told Full Fact that the image had been edited, and also shared the original image with us.
Sabby Dhalu, co-convenor for the group, added: “we strongly condemn rape, sexual abuse and exploitation”, and said Stand Up To Racism “will continue to defend communities facing racism including refugees and migrants from these racist attacks”.
Both Ms Whittome’s office and Stand Up To Racism confirmed to Full Fact that the original photo was taken at a demonstration in London in October 2024. Ms Whittome shared a post on 26 October saying she joined “tens of thousands of people marching against the far right in our capital today”, as well as sharing a photo showing her speaking to a crowd on Whitehall in Westminster.
The base of a statue visible in the background of the edited photo matches a statue also on Whitehall.
A small cropped image of a person’s face has also been added to the edited photo. We’ve not been able to find out who it is or who added it.
This altered photo has been shared in the wake of criticism in recent weeks over the investigation of grooming gangs, and the home secretary Yvette Cooper announcing a nationwide review of grooming gang evidence and five government-backed local inquiries.
You can find more of our work checking claims relating to this, including analysis of the unreliable estimate that one million children were sexually abused by grooming gangs, and the unevidenced claim Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer blocked prosecutions of these gangs while head of the Crown Prosecution Service.
We’ve also seen other instances where text in images has been edited, including in a photo of a woman holding a sign at a feminist rally in Mexico, and a road sign in Yorkshire given fake Arabic translations. It’s important to consider whether something comes from a reliable source before sharing it—our guide on verifying misleading images offers some useful tips for doing this.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as altered because the text on the placards has been edited. The placards do not say this in the original photo.
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