Urdu street signs in Bradford? Debunked.

An article posted by website The New Observer claimed that a series of sign posts in Urdu have been erected in the UK town of Bradford.

The article illustrates it claims with a sign post with several place names – including Harrogate and Leeds and the word Airport – with what the article claims are Urdu translations underneath. See the image below.

A portion of the now-deleted article can be read below –

There are now so many nonwhite colonizers in the UK’s West Yorkshire town of Bradford that the local council has erected Urdu-language street signs, after a series of accidents involving nonwhite colonists.
The signs, put up after a request by Bradford’s Grand Mufti, Mohammed Amin al Husseini, have cost more than £100,000 because “English only road signs were putting Urdu speakers at unnecessary risk.”

The claims are false. The New Observer (newobserveronline.com) is an anti-refugee, conservative website that publishes mostly articles targeting refugees and anti-immigration rhetoric. However the article about street signs in Bradford having Urdu written on them is false.

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Firstly, the language is not Urdu. As you can see from the Google Translate image below, the text supposedly depicting Harrogate is actually Arabic, and it doesn’t say Harrogate, it says ‘As-Salaamu Alaikum’, a popular greeting meaning “Peace be Upon You”.

Secondly, the image isn’t real. It is just a screenshot taken from Google Maps and has been digitally altered to fit the Arabic wording in. The original image can be seen below.

Other images apparently depicting Arabic/Urdu on street signs have also been photoshopped in the same way.