Sometimes hoaxes work as a series, with bits of information being added one at a time and developed into a storyline. Fake news broke last summer that a Muslim judge had legalized two pieces of Sharia in Michigan. That was debunked at the time, with fact checkers pointing out that the “news” was originally posted on satirical websites. Nevertheless, this hoax persisted.
“BREAKING Trump Removes Muslim Federal Judge For Trying To Implement Sharia Law In America,” the blog World Update News re-posted last week. The hoax gained new attention on Facebook and proved too ridiculous for TWS Fact Check to pass up:
The blog post explained how “Judge Alallawalhi-Smith” justified the rights of a husband to “brutalize his wife for speaking with another man or to beat her nearly to death if she were to act on her impulses” through the made-up “systematic infusion clause” (which sounds like a Bill Watterson invention).
The story then developed into a Trump-versus-Muslim-judge, WWE-style cage match, with Trump ultimately removing the (spoiler alert: fictional) judge through—in the words of World Update News—an “old precedent and an executive order”:
The “judge” is not a real person, there was no imposition of Sharia, no “precedent” was invoked, and Trump has not removed anyone. Every single aspect of this story is false.
Interestingly, the blog that re-posted this hoax has a Peruvian domain extension (.pe).
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