Muslim woman demonised by white men spreading lies

A video of a Muslim woman, Nora Mubarak, capturing a seagull in a white sheet in Grimsby has gone viral for the wrong reasons.

One of Britain’s self-styled “patriots” shared the video, with many claiming the woman was catching the bird to eat it — parroting the same racist theories that falsely accused immigrants in the US of eating pets.

However, Mubarak was actually doing a good deed in rescuing the seagull that had fallen from a roof. More footage shows her working with other locals — white locals, for the record — to reunite the gull with its mother.

Nevertheless, despite it being a load of nonsense pushed out to stir up racial hatred, the misinformation has reached far further than the truth.

This comes as another reminder that X has far too much power to shape perspectives and far too little regulation or accountability. A Brown woman’s safety was needlessly put at risk, without any reprisal, because of dangerous misinformation.

The first video posted by Active Patriot on X, with 5.2m views, is below.

🚨 This has happened in my town Grimsby on the corner of Lord Street 😲

At this rate we won't have any wildlife left 😞 Poor Stephen 😢 pic.twitter.com/ydx7utmH0x

— Active Patriot (@ActivePatriotUK) July 8, 2026

Muslims are too often victims of the ‘Robinson’ effect

Active Patriot’s misleading video, as has become pretty typical, was reshared by Tommy Robinson. As a result of the ‘Robinson effect’ and the size of these two bad actors’ followings, 8.1 million people saw the video and likely believed the nefarious suggestions made. They also received 69,000 likes with nearly 19,000 reposts.

Robinson made a disgusting suggestion that the video showed:

Invaders catching and killing gulls in broad daylight in “Modern England”.

Get these backwards people out!

In fairness to Active Patriot, he subsequently posted that he was mistaken. Tommy Robinson, of course, hasn’t felt inclined to do so because truth has never been very important to that weasel.

🚨 WOMAN WAS RESCUING SEAGULL, NOT STEALING IT

A video I shared yesterday of a woman catching a seagull in a blanket, was Not what it looked like, the woman in question was actually concerned for the small seagull after it has fell off the roof previously, as you can see in… https://t.co/X4ae0MxvCR pic.twitter.com/36ONNaUHu6

— Active Patriot (@ActivePatriotUK) July 9, 2026

X user admits he was ‘quick to judge’

The correction read:

WOMAN WAS RESCUING SEAGULL, NOT STEALING IT

A video I shared yesterday of a woman catching a seagull in a blanket, was Not what it looked like, the woman in question was actually concerned for the small seagull after it has fell off the roof previously, as you can see in this video that the woman in question shares with the seagull society on Facebook, she asked locals to help her it on to a flat roof so it could be back with its mother.

Like many people yesterday I saw the video shared round of her catching it and jumped to conclusions, for that I apologize and hold my hands up I was quick to judge.

But the post rectifying the misinformation didn’t reach nearly as far, receiving only a million views, 3,200 likes and 741 reposts.

We are living in dangerous times where bad actors can put people’s safety at risk by posting misinformation and lies. While they whip up racialised hate towards marginalised groups in a press of a button, social media platforms aren’t prioritising sanctions and regulations for this behaviour.

Anti-Muslim rhetoric called out by the Canary

We know the woman in this video (who was rescuing the seagull). So we'd recommend you remove this post and apologise for your anti-Muslim, racist tirade.

* tirade means angry verbal outburst if your followers were wondering https://t.co/dEjOsMhqkT

— Canary (@TheCanaryUK) July 10, 2026

Mubarak says she will hold liars accountable

Mubarak spoke to ITV following these dangerous allegations, saying she was helping a number of other locals to assist the distressed bird. She added:

They have an agenda to divide us, and we should not let them do so.

I hope Nora sues people like Tommy Robinson, who lied about her when she was just trying to help rescue the seagull. pic.twitter.com/7LihuGnIDH

— Mukhtar (@I_amMukhtar) July 11, 2026

The leader of Northeast Lincolnshire Council, Oliver Freeston, who represents Reform, joined the bandwagon in assuming the woman had bad intentions. Needless to say, he has failed to apologise for demonising her.

As a council leader, he has a responsibility to all his constituents, including those who are Muslim, so how does he justify such behaviour?

Those who come out to defend truth never seem to even come close to the astronomical reach of those pushing ridiculous, sensationalist lies. In fact, the government minister responsible for regulating social media platforms, Lisa Nandy, has instead walked away from the platform taking her whole department with her.

Clearly, she recognises it is a cesspit of disinformation and abuse, as she stated in her ‘Goodbye X’ post. But she has notably held back from doing anything about it, other than turning the other cheek as if a statement will suddenly make Elon Musk change his ways.

The far right will abandon all truth and reason

One thing is abundantly clear: truth does not matter to the far-right. All that matters is their explicit intention to convince British people that immigrants and asylum seekers are the reason why living standards, opportunities, local investment and social cohesion are declining. Anyone who is not white is a threat according to them.

However, they miss the point repeatedly. It’s the super-rich, who have spent decades playing politicians like instruments in an orchestra with compliant leaders happily dancing to their tune, that is the real problem.

The result? Politicians have demonised and scapegoated harmless people — and even the premise that humans have basic needs — while handing the richest in society ever more tax breaks, lucrative contracts and generous subsidies.

There is a pretty easy, and perfectly doable, way of fixing this corrosive issue in our society and political discourse. Regulate social media and make lies and misinformation expensive for those capitalising off of it.

After all, we all know rich people do not like to put their hands in their own pockets, instead they want to fleece ours.

Featured image via ITV