“I FEEL threatened right now, and I am having to look over my shoulder”.
Quroum Beg, a dad-of-three from Glasgow, has found himself at the centre of a misinformation storm flamed by far-right agitator Tommy Robinson this week, after standing up against a march of anti-immigration protesters who descended on his local park.
He was falsely accused of being an “invader” and of filming children in the park. The clip was viewed hundreds of thousands of times across various platforms, with the same false claim being repeated. The 43-year-old has now had death threats, fears for his safety, and says his children are now scared to go to the park that previously felt safe.
The storm erupted after a group, some of whom were clad all in black and wearing balaclavas, arrived at Richmond Park in the Oaklands area of Glasgow at around 9.15pm on Sunday.
Beg told The National how after seeing a helicopter overhead and noticing the crowd approaching, he took his children back to their flat nearby, with others in the local community also leaving the area. He says it then dawned on him that his car was parked near the entrance to the park, and he went to move it.
Footage provided by Beg, and seen by The National, confirms this, and that those marching towards the park began shouting at him. Beg shouted back, calling them out for being "racists".
“Something came over me,” the 43-year-old said. “All the families left the park. People were scared and at that point, I felt like I'd just speak out.”
Further video footage by Beg shows him speaking to police officers who say he is “antagonising” the crowd, who can be heard shouting in the background that he has an “attitude”. After advice from officers, and deciding against going home in case the group followed him to his door, he decided to move over to the other side of the park, near the swings.
The viral footage begins from this moment. Beg can be seen sitting on one of the swings, in a white T-shirt with his phone in his hands.
The group followed him and shouting “why are you filming kids?” and “get him out”. The police move Beg out of the park as the crowd follows him shouting.
One man can be heard shouting “he’s trying to ruin it,” while another screams “fuck your Sharia law”.
That brief clip, with the context skewed, led to Beg receiving death threats and fearing for his own safety after it was manipulated by the far-right to suit their own agenda.
Robinson, real name Stephen Yaxley Lennon, shared the clip to his two million followers, writing: “Another invader hanging around a park filming children. Glasgow again too!”
It was viewed hundreds of thousands of times before Robinson would later apologise and delete the post.
“That does not negate all the other many instances of freshie migrants taking over parks and filming children,” the far-right agitator added on Twitter/X.
The clip was also shared on Facebook by Unite the Clans Scotland, who have urged people online to take to the streets and protest against immigration. The clip has over 210,000 views, and the group has not posted a retraction at time of writing.
“Another invader in a park recording children! When does this end? Millions must go!” the post read.
Police Scotland have confirmed that the claim Beg was filming children is “completely inaccurate”.
It comes just days after the force issued a warning about misinformation, following several incidents in the Cranhill and Castlemilk areas of Glasgow. Officers warned that anonymous social media accounts were "tapping into fears of communities", after one innocent member of the public was wrongly targeted.
On Monday Beg woke up to a flurry of messages after the clip went viral, he says he spent hours having to explain to family and friends what had actually happened, and that thankfully they all stood by him.
“They shared it and made it [look] as if I was in the park, that locals came to the park to remove me, and the police all of a sudden turned up and removed me from the park, all within ten seconds,” he explained.
“This was all planned, the whole narrative was made, and that's what's now forced me to now fight against that.
“And then somebody like Tommy Robinson, who's got two million followers, has shared it, and I think it's been seen by over hundreds of thousands of people on his account alone.”
The local community too have rallied round Beg. Speaking to The National in Richmond park on Wednesday, multiple locals out enjoying the sun or walking their dogs stopped to congratulate him for standing up against the narrative that was weaponised against him.
One couple, walking their dog, said they were glad Beg was speaking to the press because the situation was “ridiculous”. “It’s disgusting what’s happened to him,” another added.
Beg said he didn’t know how to deal with the situation at first, and felt overwhelmed, but decided that he had to get his side of the story out there.
“For me to deal with somebody that's so well funded, somebody that's got such a big following, and knowing it will get amplified,” Beg said of Robinson, “I just didn't know what to do”.
“Seeing how easily a false thing can then be seen as proof,” he adds, “and then for me actually being in the middle of it and having to say no, no, this is not the proof.
"My wee voice out there saying no, this is what happened.
“It is a difficult thing because you just get hounded on. If somebody has got a big voice out there, their version gets heard.”
Beg added that because many people don't check what they see online, and believe it to be true without question, he feared that if he ever went for a job interview or tried to move house, the incident would haunt him.
He explained: “Stuff online stays there, so those wee clips right – I saw one and someone had mirrored it and put it in Spanish. How am I even going to challenge that? It’s literally worldwide right now.”
Beg has had an onslaught of abuse on social media, receiving death threats and people even suggesting he should have been “skinned”. Police have advised him on his safety.
He insists that the wider public needs to know “how much of a threat this is”, that the AI posters and calls for people to turn out on the streets are malign.
“People are turning up to the wrong house, the wrong people, the wrong situation, and somebody will get hurt” he said.
“The wrong person will get attacked, and I feel like the authorities need to now just take this threat seriously right now, because a wee tweet, even from them, or a retweet from the people in power, won't be enough right now.”
“It is dangerous,” Beg adds.
After Robinson’s apology on X, Beg said he wasn’t sure if it was actually directed at him or if it was an apology to his followers because he “made them look stupid”.
“The damage has been done,” he says.
