A news video originally broadcast by TV Asahi Corp. about Kurds living in Japan was heavily edited and uploaded on social media apparently to portray the minority group as a terrorist threat.

The post with the edited video on X (former Twitter) was deleted, but it had already been viewed millions of times and sparked comments railing against Kurds.

TV Asahi said it was considering legal action over the unauthorized reposting of its news footage.

According to TV Asahi, the original video about Kurds in Kawaguchi, Saitama Prefecture, was broadcast in December last year on a morning show and was also distributed online.

The edited video posted on X on Aug. 25 displayed “ANN NEWS” in the upper left corner. In the upper right corner were the words, “Controversy: Kurdish group in Kawaguchi ‘supports terrorism,’ Turkish government decided to freeze assets.”

According to TV Asahi officials, the original four-and-a-half-minute news clip was trimmed to one minute and 12 seconds for the X post.

They said it appears that no captions were added and that the audio was not altered.

The original video noted that the Turkish government had designated a Kurdish group in Japan as “supporters of a terrorist organization.”

However, the Kurdish side of the story was deleted in the edited version.

According to the broadcaster, a comment from a senior member of the Kurdish group denying any involvement in supporting terrorism was omitted from the social media clip.

Also removed were scenes of Kurds working with the local government and police to clear up an area of Kawaguchi.

The posted video featured an introduction to Kawaguchi, saying the city has a large population of Kurds from Turkey.

It also showed social media comments warning that the situation could mean that Kawaguchi possibly supports terrorism. Other posts shown in the video questioned why the Japanese government has not acted on the Turkish government’s designation of the Kurdish group as terrorist supporters.

Additionally, the edited video included comments from the Kawaguchi city government, saying, “When it comes to issues of terrorism, the city cannot respond.”

It also featured a statement from the Turkish Embassy, saying, “Those involved with the terrorist organization PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) are staying in Japan, and we are in contact with Japanese authorities.”

As of 8:30 p.m. on Aug. 27, the post with the attached video had been seen more than 9.2 million times.

The post led to a surge of negative comments against Kurds living in Japan, such as, “This is an invasion” and “Deport them immediately.”

However, some X posts condemned the clip as “fake news” or a “doctored video.”

“The video was intentionally edited to remove certain parts, such as the interview in which the Kurdish group in Kawaguchi denied supporting terrorism,” a TV Asahi spokesperson told The Asahi Shimbun on Aug. 27. “Since our video has been reposted without permission, we are currently considering our response.”

TV Asahi said the online distribution period for this news has already ended.

The Kurdish ethnic group has its own language and culture but no state to call its own. They live mainly in regions spanning Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran.

Turkey, believed to be home to half of the Kurdish population, has pursued a strict assimilation policy. But Kurds in the region established the PKK to seek independence, even through armed conflict.

Turkey has designated the PKK as a terrorist organization.

In November last year, the Turkish government also designated the Kurdish group in Kawaguchi, known as the Japan Kurdish Cultural Association, and its six senior members as “supporters of a terrorist organization,” and froze all of their assets in Turkey.

The association denies any involvement with terrorism.

The issue has been raised in the Diet.

At an Upper House Judicial Affairs Committee meeting in March, a deputy director-general of the National Police Agency noted that the Japanese government “had not designated” the Kurdish group as terrorists or supporters of a terrorist organization.

Discriminatory and prejudiced remarks against Kurds living in Japan have increased on social media. And concerns have grown that the edited video was posted to “incite discrimination against Kurds.”

The user of the X account that posted the video told The Asahi Shimbun on Aug. 27: “I did not edit the video. I simply reposted something that was circulating on a foreign Twitter account.”

The account holder also said, “I had thought this was the full video, so I recognized that my post was misleading and deleted it.”