Video shows Muslim women in Indonesia not London

A video of a crowd of women in Muslim dress, shared with false claims it was filmed in the UK, has been viewed by hundreds of thousands online.

The footage, which has been circulating on X (where it has over 1.7 million views and 9,000 reposts) and Instagram, shows what seems to be a procession of women wearing niqabs (a veil worn by some Muslim women in order to cover their entire face, except their eyes) walking around a wall and past the camera.

A caption shared with it says: “SHOCKING: This is not Afghanisthan [sic] or Syria or Pakistan or Saudi Arabia. This is London, UK.”

But this isn’t true. A Full Fact investigation has found the video was actually filmed in Indonesia, not England.

The same video was shared on TikTok in June, with a location pin placing it at ‘Pondok Pesantren Al Fatah Temboro’ in Indonesia. Al Fatah Temboro is an Islamic boarding school (known in Indonesia as a pesantren) in Temboro on the island of Java.

Different videos also show women in niqabs in the same spot, with hashtags mentioning Al Fatah Temboro and “santri”, which in Indonesian means students who study at a pesantren.

Using geolocation techniques, we traced the exact spot where the video was recorded to a point on Google Street View, which is within the school complex.

It therefore seems likely that the women pictured are studying or involved with the Islamic school.

Indonesia has a majority Muslim population.

You can read more about how we managed to track down the street in our blog here.

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