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stated on December 19, 2018 in a Facebook post:

Quotes Winston Churchill as saying, “When Muslims are the minority they are concerned with minority rights, when they are in the majority there are no…

Pants on Fire!
By Samantha Putterman
December 20, 2018

Meme incorrectly attributes Winston Churchill for quote on Muslims and minority rights

Winston Churchill wasn’t known to shy away from making bold statements.

But in today’s world, internet quote generators make it incredibly easy to attribute any statement to any historical figure without proper sourcing or documentation.

Such is the case for a meme recently shared on Facebook that quotes the famed British leader as saying, “When Muslims are the minority they are concerned with minority rights, when they are in the majority there are no minority rights.” One user then captioned the post, “From Winston Churchill: an undeniable source.”

The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)

Spoiler alert: There’s no evidence that Churchill ever said that.

We consulted the National Churchill Museum at Westminster College in Fulton, Mo., for any record of the quote.

Timothy Riley, chief curator of the museum, told PolitiFact he found no evidence to suggest that Churchill made the statement.

“There is no record in the vast written record to attribute this to Winston Churchill,” Riley wrote.

A search for the quote on the International Churchill Society website also yielded no results.

Richard Langworth, senior fellow at the Hillsdale College Churchill Project, included the quote in his running list of “All the ‘Quotes’ Winston Churchill Never Said.”

Snopes reported that the quote doesn’t seem to have appeared anywhere prior to 2015 — “making it extremely unlikely they originated with a man who passed away in 1965.”

We rate this false Churchill quote Pants on Fire!

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Pants on Fire

Quotes Winston Churchill as saying, “When Muslims are the minority they are concerned with minority rights, when they are in the majority there are no minority rights.”

In a Facebook post
Wednesday, December 19, 2018

Our Sources

Facebook post, Dec. 19, 2018

PolitiFact.com, "NFL's Colin Kaepernick incorrectly credits Winston Churchill for quote about lies," Oct. 9, 2017

PolitiFact.com, "Greg Abbott tweets bogus Winston Churchill quotation about anti-fascists," Aug. 7, 2018

Snopes.com, "Winston Churchill on Muslims and Minority Rights," Nov. 28, 2018

Richard M. Langworth, "All the "Quotes" Winston Churchill Never Said (2)," Nov. 16, 2018

International Churchill Society resources, Accessed Dec. 20, 2018

Email interview, Timothy Riley, chief curator of the National Churchill Museum, Dec. 20, 2018

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