Fake News: Pushma Al Haffyn Did NOT Win Lawsuit To Fly Muslim Flag Over Federal Building In Dearborn, Michigan

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk
Fake News: Pushma Al Haffyn Did NOT Win Lawsuit To Fly Muslim Flag Over Federal Building In Dearborn, Michigan

Did congresswoman Pushma Al Haffyn win a lawsuit to fly the muslim flag over the federal building in Dearborn, Michigan? No, that's not true. The congresswoman does not exist and the meme that made the claim was published by a Facebook page set up to troll conservatives and Trump supporters.

The meme with the claim was published published on April 25, 2018 on Facebook page "America's Last Line Of Defense " (archived here) and it showed a flag with yellow, green and red stripes over which following text was superimposed:

On April 20th, congresswoman Pushma Al Haffyn won her lawsuit to fly the muslim flag over the federal building in Dearborn, Michigan.
Where will the sharia go next?

The flag in the picture is actually the national flag of Lithuania:

Flag of Lithuania - Wikipedia

The flag of Lithuania consists of a horizontal tricolor of yellow, green and red. It was adopted on April 25, 1918 during Lithuania's first period of independence (in the 20th century) from 1918 to 1940, which ceased with the occupation first by Soviet Russia and Lithuania's illegal annexation into the Soviet Union, and then by Nazi Germany (1941-44).

No congresswoman by the name of "Pushma Al Haffyn" exists, and the description of the Facebook page reads:

Nothing on this page is real. It is a collection of the satirical whimsies of liberal trolls masquerading as conservatives. You have been warned.

The Facebook page is being run by self-professed liberal troll Christopher Blair, a man from Maine who has made it his full time job to troll gullible conservatives and Trump supporters into liking and sharing his articles. He used to runs several other websites such as ladiesofliberty.net, thelastlineofdefense.online and dailyworldupdate.com. Sometimes he is also known under his nickname "Busta Troll". A second man working on the sites is John Prager as revealed in this earlier story we wrote.

Articles from Blair's sites frequently get copied by "real" fake news sites who often omit the satire disclaimer and any other hints the stories are fake. Blair has tried to get these sites shut down in the past but new ones keep cropping up and he keeps knocking them down.

If you see one of his stories on a site that does not contain a satire disclaimer, assume it is fake news. If you do see the satire disclaimer it is of course also fake news.


  Maarten Schenk

Lead Stories co-founder Maarten Schenk is our resident expert on fake news and hoax websites. He likes to go beyond just debunking trending fake news stories and is endlessly fascinated by the dazzling variety of psychological and technical tricks used by the people and networks who intentionally spread made-up things on the internet.  He can often be found at conferences and events about fake news, disinformation and fact checking when he is not in his office in Belgium monitoring and tracking the latest fake article to go viral.

Read more about or contact Maarten Schenk

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