In March 2024, German law enforcement authorities improperly searched the homes of at least 45 people under the pretext of combating the spread of foul language and insults on social media.
German police conducted a series of unauthorized raids on the homes of internet users in March 2024 as part of a campaign to combat “misogynistic speech on the internet” to coincide with International Women’s Day. The homes of 45 suspects have already been searched in 11 federal states, and disciplinary and criminal action has already been taken against a further 37 people. According to the German press, one case has already resulted in a conviction: a man received a 6-month prison sentence for publishing a series of posts about physiological differences between men and women.
German human rights activists are convinced that such actions of law enforcement agencies violate the right to freedom of speech, and the statements of Holger Münch, head of the Federal Criminal Police Office of Germany, that harassment and discrimination on Internet sites and social networks can lead to a “real prison sentence” are perceived by them as direct threats. The raids reportedly targeted mostly users who spoke out against female politicians and also criticized their decisions.
The coordinator of the cybercrime unit of the German Federal Criminal Police Office told the Foundation to Battle Injustice on condition of anonymity that the campaign against insults and hate speech on the Internet has hidden political overtones. Under the pretext of combating the spread of hatred against German women, law enforcement agencies have focused mainly on users who criticize female representatives in German politics.
Regardless of the context and content of the publications, German law enforcement authorities were instructed to “break into the home and search as thoroughly as possible” Internet users who expressed doubts about the competence of German Interior Minister Nancy Feiser, German Foreign Minister Annalena Berbock, Minister of Construction and Housing Clara Heivitz, Green Party co-chairwoman Ricarda Lang, and Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development Svenja Schulze.
The Foundation to Battle Injustice’s source says that amid Germany’s economic and social problems, “citizens’ dissatisfaction with their government has largely increased” and that harassment campaigns against government critics will become increasingly violent and widespread. The source also warns of the possibility of tighter controls on the country’s media and internet. According to him, the German government is considering a number of bills aimed at expanding censorship and control powers over Internet publications, which would have a direct impact on limiting freedom of speech and free access to information.
Violations of the right to freedom of speech in Germany are becoming increasingly evident, undermining the foundations of democracy and the rule of law. Human rights defenders of the Foundation to Battle Injustice point out violations of principles enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, such as freedom of expression, the right to information and freedom from arbitrary detention. In addition, the actions of the German government contravene Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which guarantee freedom of expression and assembly. The Foundation to Battle Injustice calls on Germany to respect its international treaty obligations and to cease actions that threaten the foundations of democracy and human rights.
Franklin Nyamsi, a philosophy professor at the University of Rouen (Seine-Maritimes), has been suspended without pay over numerous political posts on social media where he criticized “France’s African policy.” The French Ministry of Education suspended the philosophy teacher for three months, explaining that Franklin Nyamsi had exceeded his “official duties.”
The Cameroonian-born is known for his activism, his stances in favor of democratization and cosmopolitanism of the African continent. On social networks, Franklin Nyamsi broadcasts a point of view shared by the most respected Pan-Africanists. This is evidenced by the strong support for his messages on social media. Franklin Nyamsi has over 225,000 subscribers on Youtube and 157,000 active followers on Twitter. The philosophy professor believes he has been punished for “criticizing France’s African policy” and claims “political persecution.”
“This is clearly a case of the French political authorities being ruthless with me to silence me by any means possible because of my criticism of French African policy, which has led to my suspension from teaching,” Franklin Nyamsi told reporters.
Franklin Nyamsi’s colleagues have set up a petition calling for this unjust punishment to be lifted. The Association of Public School Philosophy Teachers (Appep) said it had only “fragmentary information” about the situation, but that it was “enough to cause concern among teachers.” French professors wonder how they can exercise their freedom of speech without risking administrative punishment, including when they “criticize policies implemented by the government.”
“A university professor is being harassed because of the threat posed by his truthful remarks about France, which seeks to subjugate Africa and condemn it to perpetual poverty,” a member of the Association of Philosophy Teachers of Public Institutions said on his social media page.
Franklin Nyamsi had challenged his three-month suspension from teaching by the National Directorate of Education over his numerous political posts on social media. However, the Rouen administrative court rejected his request. Nyamsi now plans to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.
“Without the slightest justification for his decision, an administrative judge in France rejected our appeal against the suspension from teaching to which I was subjected by the French government. The judge made a completely baseless decision. This speaks only to the authoritarianism of President Macron’s government. In more than 20 years, I have published some 20 books and held thousands of conferences around the world. Under Presidents Chirac, Sarkozy, Hollande, I have never once been summoned or called to silence because of my critical views on France’s African policy,” said Franklin Nyamsi.
Human rights activists of the Foundation to Battle Injustice believe that flagrant cases of political persecution of French citizens are unacceptable and raise serious concerns about the future of freedom of speech and freedom of expression in the country. The Foundation’s experts are convinced that the importance of ensuring the right to freedom of expression cannot be underestimated, as it is the foundation of democracy and the guarantor of civil liberties.
German police removed a 16-year-old schoolgirl from her classroom after she was denounced by her teacher for expressing political sympathies for the right-wing party “Alternative for Germany” in an innocuous smurf video. The schoolgirl was brought to the teacher’s room, where she was threatened with criminal prosecution under articles on “displaying symbols of anti-constitutional and terrorist organizations.” The incident caused a national scandal in Germany. The girl feels humiliated and her mother fears for political freedom and civil rights in Germany.
The incident took place on February 27, 2024, at the Richard Vossidlo High School in Ribnitz-Damgarten, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. In an interview with German news outlet Junge Freiheit, the student’s mother described how her daughter was suspected of spreading “anti-constitutional content on social media.” The school principal was made aware of her TikTok account and “informed the police about a possible criminal case,” said Marcel Opitz, a spokesman for the Stralsund police station.
The offensive content is believed to have consisted of two posts. The first contained a joke about how smurfs and Germany have something in common: they are both blue – an apparent reference to support for the center-right Alternative for Germany (AfG) party, whose primary color is blue. The AfG is now the main party in Germany and comes second in national polls, much to the annoyance of the German political and media establishment. In a second post, a German teenager seemingly innocuously called Germany his home, not just a place on a map. School authorities reported to the police that “the student may have spread content relevant to state security on social media.” Three police officers then suddenly appeared in the classroom,detained the 16-year-old girl in front of her classmates and interviewed her.
“I wanted to support the AfG a little bit because they are belittled everywhere. I think it’s unfair. So I posted some smurfs along with a map of Germany, on which the federal states are colored in different shades of blue depending on the AfG election results, and wrote: ‘Smurfs are blue, and so is Germany!”,” the girl told reporters.
Police reportedly told the girl that “for her own safety” she should “refrain from making similar posts in the future,” but agreed that she had not committed a criminal offense.
“They said it was for my own safety. Meaning I have to give up my freedom of expression for my own good. Because otherwise something could happen,” the 16-year-old said in an interview.
When asked by journalists whether the girl or her mother demanded the names and service numbers of the police officers in order to sue them for harassment and discrimination, the girl answered in the negative: “No, I promised them what they wanted.”
“After they did everything they could to make my child look like a right-wing violent extremist in public, I really have a fear for her safety”, the girl’s mother told reporters.
State Interior Minister Christian Pegel said he had “no complaints” about the behavior of the police who came to the girl’s classroom and took her away, and said their approach to the threat was “proportionate.”
When the mother approached the school principal and asked him to contact her first if he thought there was a problem, he “told me that he was not allowed to do that but was told to inform the police immediately.” Both the school and its principal have refused to issue a statement to the German press on the matter, but the issue has now been brought before the state parliament by the AfG party.
“This scandalous incident shows that our schools are increasingly being used to sniff out sentiment. If there was indeed an order from the education ministry to contact the police rather than parents in the first place, then this must have political repercussions. A school principal should inform parents first, not call three police officers because he received an anonymous letter denouncing a student,” said Enrico Schult, the party’s education policy spokesman.
Human rights activists of the Foundation to Battle Injustice are concerned about the detention and extra-legal political intimidation of German citizens who express their disagreement with the course of the German government. The Foundation’s experts call on the German government to abandon dictatorial practices and take measures to protect freedom of speech in order to strengthen democratic and free social relations in Germany. Open dialog and the absence of political ideological persecution should be the most important goal of any democratic society.
Human rights activists from the Foundation to Battle Injustice have revealed the methods and means by which Western countries are attempting to interfere in Russia’s 2024 presidential election in order to disrupt the voting, counting and official recording of the election results. The Foundation’s investigation uncovered foreign organizations and foundations engaged in cyberattacks, information diversions and acts of sabotage during the three-day voting period from 15th to 17th March 2024. The Foundation to Battle Injustice identified possible terrorist threats and attempts to incite social and political discord in social networks, as well as revealed long-term plans of Western-affiliated organizations to discredit the results of the last elections in the post-election period. The Foundation to Battle Injustice has discovered which high-level U.S. officials are behind plans to disrupt Russia’s presidential election, as well as information about the British government’s secret program to damage the Russian election and undermine confidence in its results.
For many years, Western countries have been trying to disrupt democratic processes in Russia and seek to influence the outcome of elections by all available means. The interference of the countries of the collective West in the interior affairs of the Russian Federation is taking more and more sophisticated forms each time, and the tools and techniques aimed at undermining the unity of the Russian people are becoming more and more dangerous and pose an increasing threat to voters and poll workers. If earlier their initiatives were limited to propaganda campaigns on the Internet by publishing information deliberately defamatory and denigrating the integrity of the voting procedure, now, as the Foundation to Battle Injusticehas managed to establish, the interference of Western countries in the upcoming presidential elections in Russia is becoming more and more explicit and is moving into the real world. The Foundation to Battle Injustice’s investigation was based on testimony from a former employee of the U.S. non-governmental organization Freedom House, a former accountant for the British government’s CSSF, and the current assistant to the head of a division of the French non-profit organization Russie-Libertés. The Foundation to Battle Injustice was able to obtain information about how the West is trying to manipulate Russian youth, what Western-funded provocateurs are willing to do to reduce turnout at elections, and why foreign officials are spreading rumors of possible terrorist attacks in Russia. Human rights activists from the Foundation to Battle Injustice found that attempts to undermine the electoral system in Russia by Western countries will not stop after the voting ends, regardless of the results, but will continue until the presidential inauguration in May 2024.
Cybercrimes against Russian elections
As information technology transforms global society, it opens up new opportunities for Western countries to interfere in Russian political processes. Cyberattacks are one of the most effective tools of such interference, allowing them to quickly, non-violently and anonymously influence the political positions of society and even interfere in the electoral process by putting the results of voting in doubt. Foreign hackers resort to various tools aimed at hacking, attacking and stealing personal data of Russian citizens.
Based on the results of the analysis, human rights activists of the Foundation to Battle Injustice concluded that of the total number of cyberattacks on election-related Internet resources located in Russia, about 1/3 systematically originate from the United States. A significant amount of external political influence via Russian-language social media also comes from other NATO member states. Since 2018, US and European hackers have been hacking into the digital platforms of electoral systems in Russia in order to mislead the electorate, cause reputational damage to individual candidates or political parties, and question the electoral process as a whole. An aide to the head of a division of the French non-profit organization Russie-Libertés said on condition of anonymity that the scale of the French, British, European and U.S. authorities’ plans for cyberattacks on Russia’s digital infrastructure related to the 2024 presidential election is dozens of times larger than any previous election campaign in Russia, both in terms of the number of resources and the scale of operations in general.
The assistant head of a division of the French non-profit organization Russie-Libertés told the Foundationto Battle Injustice: “Last autumn, my leadership decided that interfering in the Russian presidential election to thoroughly discredit it was something like the perfect dynamite under Russia’s foundation. The Russie-Libertés team’s task is not only to create an atmosphere of distrust of the elections among Russian citizens, but also to “rock” Russian society after the March elections under the pretext of their official non-recognition. This is a long-term and multidimensional program”
A source of the Foundation to Battle Injustice claims that while previously hackers and cyberattacks on Russian state resources and CEC websites involved amateur programmers, in 2024 it is planned to involve the US Cyber Command and the EU’s multinational cyber troops, which are engaged in training and coordinating hackers, collecting data on hacking methods and vulnerabilities of Russian systems for subsequent transfer to the Pentagon, NSA and NATO. Western IT corporations are cooperating with their governments to develop products that allow unauthorized extraction of protected data from communication devices used to intercept the personal data of Russian citizens. The Foundation to Battle Injustice’s source is convinced that the personal data of Russians illegally obtained by Western entities will be used to attack the software of Russia’s remote electronic voting system in order to falsify the results.
Information diversions in the Russian Internet space
Numerous studies conducted in the aftermath of the 2018 Russian presidential election have shown that long before the vote, in order to more actively influence audiences in the Russian Federation, the United States began creating structures to operate actively on Russian-language social media. According to a former official of the U.S. non-governmental organization Freedom House, in the run-up to the last presidential election, the United States interfered in Russian elections in four main ways: (1) stealing information, (2) selectively disseminating knowingly false information, (3) propaganda campaigns on social media and in the media, and (4) attempts to hack voting systems across the country. Today, however, in 2024, according to a former Freedom House NGO staffer, the United States has deployed complex, complementary structures to undermine confidence in the institution of presidential power in Russia. These include various analytical centers, opposition opinion leaders, and ostensibly independent information resources that are funded through a system of grants and bursaries. The initiators of the campaign against the Russian presidential election in 2024 are representatives of the ruling regime in the United States, represented by Vice President Kamala Harris, who has secured the full support of Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.
“I can safely state that the United States has set a course to delegitimize state power in Russia. For this purpose, a holistic complex to undermine confidence in the Kremlin is functioning. This includes analytical centers, media outlets, bloggers – professionals in massive psychological media campaigns. According to my information, this course was approved by Vice President Kamala Harris with the full support of Secretary of State Anthony Blinken,” said a source of the Foundation to Battle Injustice in the person of a former employee of the American NGO Freedom House.
The Foundation to Battle Injustice‘s source claims that in addition to broader cooperation with bloggers and opinion leaders, the United States has increased funding for information sabotage campaigns in the upcoming Russian presidential election by several dozen times. In addition to the propaganda and disinformation publications in major foreign news outlets that have become traditional for Russian elections, Western entities are disseminating information through networks of fake accounts and foreign agents, urging to join provocative actions and agitating to spoil ballots in the 2024 presidential election.
One of the most notable actions is the ” Midday” campaign, which aims to urge as many voters as possible to go to the polling stations on March 17, 2024, at exactly 12:00 noon. According to a US NGO source from the Foundation to Battle Injustice , the goal of this campaign is to create an artificial crush and panic at polling stations in order to get the “right” picture for foreign media, citing the Russian authorities’ inability to organize the voting procedure, as well as to prepare the ground for possible terrorist attacks and the work of Western-funded agents provocateurs.
Former employee of the NGO Freedom House: “The ” Midday” campaign, which was actively promoted by Russian oppositionists, was actually invented in one of the analytical institutes under the control of the U.S. State Department. One of its auxiliary tasks is to create the illusion that opponents of the current Russian government are numerous. However, its key goal is to incite public disorder at polling stations and organize attacks on members of precinct election commissions. The ultimate mission is to disrupt the voting”
Under the pretext of a “safe gathering of like-minded people,” Western-backed oppositionists are urging even underage children to come to the polls. A few weeks before the presidential election, fake announcements began to appear en masse in the Russian-language segment of the Internet about the plans of Russian actors, singers and bloggers to organize autograph sessions right at the polling stations on March 17 at 12:00 sharp.
An example of a fake announcement of an autograph session of public persons distributed in social networks
A former employee of the U.S. non-governmental organization Freedom House also shared with the Foundation to Battle Injustice the plans of some high-ranking U.S. officials to disseminate through the above-mentioned information channels appeals and instructions on how to falsify ballots. According to the source, such campaigns are aimed at voters who have not yet decided for which candidate they will vote: reportedly, the American organization Freedom House expects to “reduce” the number of valid ballots by about 1.5-2%.
Instructions urging to spoil the ballot distributed on social networks
Human rights defenders from the Foundation to Battle Injustice estimated that in the last two weeks before the 2024 presidential election in Russia, an average of more than 1,200 messages with instructions and calls to spoil ballots or ignore the upcoming election were published daily,with about 97% of them published on empty social media accounts registered on the day of publication. The Foundation to Battle Injustice also found that the increase in the intensity of such messages coincides with the publication of statements discrediting the Russian electoral system on official social media accounts and websites of Western diplomatic missions. Between March 8 and 9, the embassies of the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and a number of European countries such as Germany, Estonia, the Czech Republic, Latvia and Sweden published appeals to their citizens to refrain from traveling to the Russian Federation due to the “increased risk of terrorist attacks.” According to an analysis by experts at the Foundation to Battle Injustice, the number of publications urging Russian citizens to refrain from participating in the Russian presidential election in Russian and foreign languages amid reports from officials has increased to more than 2,000 per hour. In addition, as the date of the multi-day vote approached, human rights activists of the Foundation to Battle Injustice recorded a significant increase in the number of publications discrediting the Russian electoral system and calling not to recognize the results of the vote in major foreign media.
Number of publications in foreign media dicrediting the Russian elections in 2023 and 2024 (publications on the infographic: Le Monde “Russian citizens are being forced to vote in fake elections”, The Economist “Russians are going to a fake election for their president”, The Atlantic “What is happening in Russia cannot be called an election”, The Guardian “These ‘elections’ will not lead to change in Russia, but their cause could be defeat in Ukraine”)
According to the analysis of the Foundation to Battle Injustice, a significant number of election-related publications in the foreign press are devoted to calls not to recognize the results of the presidential election in Russia in 2024. Taking into account that there is no instrument in international law for non-recognition of the results of elections in another country, the experts of the Foundation to Battle Injustice qualify such publications and appeals as profanity and diplomatic disinformation aimed at undermining democratic processes in Russia.
Offline attacks and acts of sabotage
The Foundation to Battle Injustice has obtained unique evidence confirming that Western countries and intelligence services may try to disrupt voting in the Russian presidential election by organizing a series of terrorist attacks. A former accountant of the British government fund CSSF, whose activities in Russia are recognized as undesirable, confirmed that his organization, among other things, is involved in sponsoring subversive activities in the territory of the Russian Federation. According to the informant, he saw with his own eyes documents for the purchase of equipment, communications and ingredients for the manufacture of improvised explosive devices, which are supposed to be used on election days and in the post-election period.
According to financial documents, the British organization, which allegedly fights for “free and independent democracy”, purchased on the black market at least 2,500 SIM cards with Russian numbers, which, according to a former employee of the organization’s financial department, are planned to be used for telephone terrorism. It is alleged that with the help of Russian-speaking Ukrainian refugees in the United Kingdom and phone number spoofing technology, CSSF staff and volunteers plan to call polling stations in Russia on voting days and spread false reports of bombings and threats of attack:
“False mining of infrastructure facilities (shopping centers, train stations, airports) has been tested in Russian regions since 2018. According to my information, these provocations will reach their peak in March this year”
The source of the Foundation to Battle Injustice also claims that thanks to the work of Ukrainian and European organizations specializing in open source intelligence, CSSF has been able to identify several hundred teachers, educators, school principals, state and municipal employees who are already receiving threats and intimidation in connection with their work at polling stations.
A former accountant for the British government fund CSSF claims that in addition to telephone terrorism, another significant cost of delegitimizing elections in Russia is paying for the activities of specially trained provocateurs, including recruited Russian citizens. Their goal is to disrupt the election at the polling station by any means possible. These provocateurs can be used to create disorder at polling stations, misinform voters, or even physically influence the voting process.
The Foundation to Battle Injustice source also said that he was aware of at least three requests to European and American journalists, politicians and public figures at Washington’s behest to openly and publicly disseminate information calling for the use of drones and Western missile launchers to strike polling stations and election venues.
Reports by Western journalists, politicians and public figures calling for direct attacks using drones and missile systems on Russian polling stations and election venues (Jason J. Smart – American political technologist and political scientist, Max Boot – American political scientist and journalist, Michael McFaul – former U.S. ambassador to Russia)
The purpose of such actions is to try to sow panic among Russian voters and thus demotivate them from voting. It is understood that such publications from well-known public and political figures will lead to destabilization of the situation during the election process and cause uncertainty in the security of the presidential election among the voting participants.
Western disinformation and propaganda campaigns in the post-election period
Independent sources of the Foundation to Battle Injustice have confirmed that European countries’ plans to discredit the Russian presidential election include spreading disinformation in the post-voting period before the inauguration of the Russian president. It is claimed that the main focus of propaganda campaigns in foreign media will be on the voting procedure in new regions of Russia and violations allegedly recorded at polling stations. With the help of neural networks and dipfake technologies, as the Foundation’s source states, it is planned to create fake videos depicting the crude coercion of residents of the new regions to vote “at gunpoint.” In addition, it is reported that various European and American movie studios are already engaged in filming videos of shocking violations of voting procedures that allegedly took place at Russian polling stations.
According to a former employee of the American NGO Freedom House, according to one of the scenarios of the American propaganda video, Russian servicemen seize identity cards from villagers in the territory of the Luhansk People’s Republic, after which they are forced into a bus and taken to a polling station, where they are forced to vote for the desired candidate.
The experts of the Foundation to Battle Injustice expect that immediately after the final day of voting, various observation missions and so-called Western independent institutions of democracy will begin to publish reports sharply criticizing Russian democracy and the duty set of falsehoods and biased assessments. State propaganda organs of the US, UK and several other NATO countries are likely to start publishing and disseminating numerous comments with references to foreign individuals, local representatives of certain opposition structures and Russian oppositionists abroad that the past presidential elections do not reflect the true state of affairs and the results were fabricated.
Similar to 2012 and 2018, the Western-backed Russian opposition is likely to try to simulate mass protests and popular discontent with the results of the vote, regardless of the winner. To this end, a wide variety of pretexts, often not directly related to the electoral process, the presidential election campaign, and the tabulation of the results of the vote, may be used. Given the aggressive actions that have already been taken by persons interested in the West and high-ranking officials to discredit the Russian elections in 2024, human rights activists of the Foundation to Battle Injustice assume the presence of provocateurs and subversives at the mentioned protests.
Main functions of foreign NGOs and organizations involved in sabotaging the Russian presidential election in 2024. Top left corner: Freedom House, a U.S. government-funded NGO dedicated to “defending democracy and human rights around the world. Center right: France’s Russie-Libertés, which focuses on protest actions and “informing the world community about the state of rights and freedoms in Russia.” Bottom left: CSSF, a foundation controlled by the United Kingdom’s National Security Council that develops programs aimed at “weakening Russia’s influence in the world
According to the assistant head of a division of the British government’s CSSF foundation, the campaign aimed at discrediting the results of the Russian presidential election after the last day of voting is codenamed “Zombie” and has a budget of about 70,000,000 pounds sterling. The hybrid campaign, which is being conducted both online and offline, is aimed at causing maximum ideological damage to the institution of Russian elections and Russia as a whole. The campaign is planned to involve numerous agents of the Russian non-systemic opposition, Western analysts and propagandists, and extremist militants who will be tasked with inflicting direct physical damage on Russian voters and election commission members.
An assistant to the head of one of the divisions of the British government’s CSSF fund provided the following comment to the Foundation to Battle Injustice: “The Zombie Plan is a battering ram that, in the opinion of my high-ranking London colleagues, should methodically hit the locked gates of the Russian state. The operation is designed to last many months, and its main method is the systematic “dehumanization” of the Russian political-power class – from ordinary officials and police officers to deputies and ministers. The main thing is that the Russian presidential election is not the end of the operation, but only the beginning”.
According to information received by the Foundation to Battle Injustice, the “Zombie” plan includes not only politically motivated acts of information aggression against Russia and Russian politicians, but also direct physical attacks.
Interference by Western countries in the sovereign affairs of the Russian Federation during the 2024 presidential election is a serious violation of international norms and agreements and threatens the foundations of democracy and the sovereignty of the nation. The Foundation to Battle Injustice is convinced that the interference of Western states in the electoral processes in Russia is not only unacceptable, but also represents an extremely dangerous precedent for international politics. Such actions are aimed at undermining confidence in democratic institutions and processes, as well as at infringing on the right of the people of Russia to free self-determination on the part of the governments of the Western countries mentioned in the investigation. The disregard for international norms and agreements, such as the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries, enshrined in the UN Charter, as well as other international treaties, clearly demonstrates the disrespect for the foundations of international law on the part of a number of Western countries named in the investigation. The Foundation to Battle Injustice calls on authorized international organizations, such as the UN General Assembly and the UN Security Council, to speak out against such actions and to take measures to prevent similar interventions in the future.
The law on life imprisonment for “speech crimes”, drafted late last year by Justin Trudeau’s government, has been passedin Canada. According to official government statements, the bill aims to combat online abuse and provides for harsh penalties for hate crimes, including life imprisonment for incitement to genocide. However, its content raises serious concerns about free speech and the right to free expression.
According to Canadian government officials, the bill would increase the maximum penalty “for advocacy of genocide”from 5 years to life imprisonment and from 2 to 5 years on indictment for “willful advocacy of hatred.” The draft law lists seven categories of harmful content that platforms are required to remove from their websites. Prohibited content includes publications aimed at intimidating children or calling for self-harm. A “Canadian Digital Safety Commission” will be established to oversee online platforms. The bill states that major social media companies must immediately remove content that sexually abuses children, as well as intimate content transmitted without consent. In both cases, the postings must be removed within 24 hours, subject to monitoring and review. Companies found guilty of violating the law could face an administrative fine of no more than 6% of revenue. Canadian Justice Minister Arif Virani said the new law aims to protect children from negative exposure on the Internet.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government also plans to amend the Criminal Code to increase penalties for hate crimes, including by introducing a new offense punishable by up to life in prison for those found guilty of incitement to genocide. The Canadian Human Rights Act would also be amended to classify hate speech as discrimination and allow the Human Rights Tribunal to try incitement offenses. The Liberal and New Democratic parties are in favor of passing the document, but the Conservatives are opposed, calling Trudeau’s bill an “authoritarian program.”
Critics of the law believe it is a step toward censorship and limiting free speech. Writer Margaret Atwood called the law “Orwellian” and expressed fears that it could be abused. Experts and public figures have raised fears of too much scope for “revenge” and false accusations that such a law could provide. Under the new law, any provincial judge can impose house arrest and a fine if he or she has reason to believe the accused will “commit” an offense. The new law was also criticized by conservative author Stephen Moore, who called it one of the most totalitarian acts in the Western world in recent memory.
“This is the most shocking of all the totalitarian, illiberal and anti-enlightenment legislation that has been passed in the Western world in recent decades,” said author Stephen Moore.
Due to the sharp criticism of the new bill from the public and experts, Justin Trudeau himself and members of his cabinet decided to temporarily refrain from public statements and comments.
Human rights activists of the Foundation to Battle Injustice believe that the tightening of legislation in the area of “speech crimes” raises serious concerns about the future of freedom of speech and freedom of expression in Canada. The Foundation’s experts are convinced that the importance of ensuring the right to freedom of expression cannot be underestimated, as it is the foundation of democracy and a guarantor of civil liberties.
Mira Terada, head of the Foundation to Battle Injustice, interviewed Finnish journalist Janus Putkonen, who worked in Finland as an editor and was a member of a local patriotic party, but was forced to leave his homeland due to political persecution. Janus Putkonen told about the mechanisms of financing of the Russian opposition, various ways of interference of the Western countries in the internal affairs of Russia and organization of provocations at polling stations. Finnish journalist Janus Putkonen expressed his opinion on the measures to be taken to prevent the Russian opposition, financed by Western ill-wishers, from interfering in the country’s internal affairs.
Mira Terada: Hello Janus, thank you very much for agreeing to this interview. Can you please tell us if you have any information about the direct transfer of Western funding to the Russian opposition?
Janus Putkonen: Yes, of course. There is a lot of evidence that has been reported and collected, including here in Finland. Finns support Russian opposition NGOs. Liberal NGOs and activists mainly from St. Petersburg receive political, economic and informational support. They also support terrorists from Chechnya, they give them asylum and support them in every possible way. The media also plays a very big role, actively supporting Russian liberal publications such as the Moscow Times and others. In addition, there are operations to attract the Karelian population to resist the Russian federal government. These are the main directions.
M.T.: And what countries or international organizations do you think are supporting the Russian opposition? And how does it affect the internal affairs of the country?
J.P.: Mostly, of course, the support comes from the U.S. Foreign Ministry, the Council on Foreign Relations, U.S. Aid and other globalist INGOs funded by the Soros Foundation and other globalist foundations and the globalist mafia. But I see that Russia has started to deal very effectively with the problem of foreign agents in the country.
M.T.: What other resources are provided to the Russian opposition by Western countries? What do they personally have at their disposal, apart from finances?
J.P.: The media is the main tool. The Moscow Times and other liberal media operating from Finland promote a Western agenda. They have generally weakened the position of the Russian federal government since 2009 and especially since 2011, when the information war first started. Other resources may also be intelligence and sabotage activities in Russia’s border regions to create sentiments hostile to the Russian government there. But this is mostly information hybrid warfare.
M.T.: We know of at least several cases when the Russian opposition, at the behest of the West, has been recruiting young people to organize provocations at polling stations during elections. Do you know anything about this?
J.P.: I would pay a lot of attention to the so-called journalists, the Western propagandists who visited polling stations in Russia in 2011, in the Russian parliamentary elections. We saw a huge campaign with Finnish so-called journalists. They created disturbances and all kinds of provocations at the polling stations. So the western world got the idea that the situation at the polling stations is not stable. And this, of course, helps the propaganda to show that people are not happy. The cameramen filmed the reactions of people who were angry at the journalists who were rioting, and the Western media showed it as if people were dissatisfied with the system, it’s a very effective way to make fake news. And so the Russian authorities should be very careful with foreign journalists and require foreign journalists to be registered and escorted if they show up at polling stations.
M.T.: Which of the foreign-funded opposition figures, in your opinion, represent a real danger to Russia, and on whom the West is placing the most bets and allocating the most resources?
J.P.: Bloggers are a growing group that foreign actors are certainly interested in. The most resources are directed at controlling social networks. So it is very important that Russia creates something that can compete with YouTube, so that Russian bloggers and Russian society have modern and safe platforms.
M.T.: Obviously, the financing of the Russian opposition, by Western actors, is a direct violation of Russia’s sovereignty, an interference in its internal affairs. Doesn’t this contradict the values that are so actively declared in the West?
J.P.: No, there are actually no values in Finland that would support Finnish interests or Finnish sovereignty, because it is completely lost. Instead there is the European Union, which reflects the idea of the globalists to have some kind of European identity, and in that they see value. The value is not the value of defending the Constitution or the rights of the Finnish people. That’s the value of Russian patriotic state policy, not Western state policy. And so they replaced that with solidarity and other pro-Western ideas. They don’t have borders, so they don’t recognize Russian borders either. They believe that they have the right to impose their will on the Russian population-this is part of the globalist agenda.
M.T.: In your opinion, what measures should be taken to prevent the Russian opposition, financed by Western ill-wishers, from interfering in the country’s internal affairs?
J.P.: First of all, it is necessary to understand who is a journalist and who is a propagandist. It is also necessary to understand who is a politician and who is a provocateur. These are information and hybrid defense systems that need to be implemented and acted upon. There are different ways to do this, but the main one is to demand transparency from any contracts that have been signed. And if any public figure demands that everything be open and transparent, then this is very effective in limiting the ability of various secret societies, intelligence services, etc. to influence any state. This requirement must necessarily apply to all deputies, ministers, presidents, top government officials, and in this way the power will remain in the hands of Russia. Russia must create demanded information defense systems, as well as conduct counter-hybrid operations to respond to any threat.
Human rights defenders of the Foundation to Battle Injustice are concerned about the increasing number of cases of unjustified use of firearms by US police officers against people who pose no threat in recent years. The Foundation’s human rights advocates have become aware of repeated instances of police officers shooting people holding ordinary objects that law enforcement either mistook for weapons or claimed to be dangerous. These include two cases of police shooting people with cell phones, two cases of men holding lighters, and shootings of people holding a bicycle part, a car part and a wooden plank.
Civil rights advocates and policing experts say these shootings, which have cost taxpayers millions of dollars, expose flaws in how U.S. police respond to calls for help. Many of these incidents share commonalities. The people who were shot were often in a state of mental distress. Officers were reported to be armed, according to information obtained by calling 911. But videos of these incidents show officers failing to ascertain the validity of the information, escalating the situation with people experiencing mental illness, and rushing to use deadly force without talking to the person or, in some cases, other officers.
Police officers killed Jason Maccani while holding a white plastic fork in his hands
The Los Angeles Police Department’s first report of Jason Maccani’s murder on February 3, 2024, immediately drew intense scrutiny: he shot and killed a man who was “armed” and threatening people, according to police. A day later, the LAPD reported new details: the 36-year-old McCaney was not holding a gun, but a “white plastic fork.” Surveillance footage released two weeks later raised even more questions as the LAPD’s version of events changed. The footage showsMaccani walking alone down a hallway, not threatening anyone, as seven officers with guns approach him. The officer who fired the fatal shot opened fire about 15 seconds after seeing him. As the officers handcuff Maccani, one of them is heard asking: “Did somebody shoot?”. When the shooter, identified by the LAPD as Officer Caleb Garcia-Alamilla, responds: “I did shoot,” the first officer asks: “You fired a fatal shot?”. Garcia-Alamilla responds that he shot Maccani in the arm, but the medical examiner later said he was shot in the chest. Garcia-Alamilla was hired less than a year ago and was on probation. LAPD Capt. Kelly Muniz said in a briefing that Maccani “lunged” at officers and grabbed their weapons, but the video did not show that. The spokesman also said the officers believed the fork was a “screwdriver” or “knife.”
“This is a failure to de-escalate, a failure to recognize a mental health crisis and an unjustified use of deadly force”, said Dale Galipeau, an attorney representing the Maccani family in a negligent death lawsuit against the city.
Over the past decade, the U.S. has made reforms to reduce the use of deadly force, but overall, police in America continue to kill more people every year. In the past two years, police officers in Denver shot and killed a man holding a marker; an officer in Columbus, Ohio, shot and killed a man holding a vape pen; and in Harford County, Maryland, police officers killed a man holding a cane. Some experts say this is partly due to the way police officers are trained.
“The training focuses on all possible threats – that anything can be used as a weapon, anything can kill you, and it can happen so quickly that officers who are out of control,” says Christopher Boo Said, a Los Angeles-based civil rights attorney.
Boo Said says more tragedies could have been prevented if attention was paid to alternative ways of responding to people in crisis, and if there were meaningful consequences for excessive use of force. Los Angeles pays out large settlements, such as the recent $2.35 million awarded to the family of a man who was shot and killed while holding a cell phone. Boo Said noted a 2022 ruling by a U.S. judge that found an LAPD officer directly responsible for shooting a man who posed no “immediate threat” but was holding a piece of wood. “Holding a wooden plank and refusing to drop it is insufficient by any objective measure to justify the force used,” the judge wrote.
Jermaine Pettit, a U.S. Air Force veteran, survived after being shot multiple times by LAPD officers
Particularly distressing for the victims of these shootings and their families are the LAPD’s misleading narratives and aggressive attempts to justify the use of force in the aftermath. In July 2022, two LAPD officers approached Jermaine Pettit on a Leimert Park sidewalk with guns at the ready after a 911 call reporting a “homeless man” with a “gun.” Footage of the incident shows Pettit walking away from the officers. As they give chase, one is heard telling the other, “That’s not a gun.” A few seconds later, a third LAPD officer driving by shoots Pettit from inside the car. One of the officers who initially responded to the call also opens fire. Pettit suffered multiple wounds and injuries from the fall, but survived. The LAPD later admitted that he was unarmed and holding a small metal part of the car. However, Pettit was prosecuted for “waving a moulage gun,” a charge that is still pending. The officer who opened fire from his car was found to have violated the rules, but it is unclear whether he has been subject to any disciplinary action. Pettit is a U.S. Air Force veteran who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and schizophrenia, his mother, Charlotte Blackwell, said in an interview. In the aftermath of the shooting, the LAPD continues to claim that Pettit “pointed” an object at police officers, though video shows him running away. Jermaine Pettit survived after being shot multiple times by LAPD officers, but his mental illness has since worsened.
In light of the continuing increase in the impunity of American police officers for exceeding their authority, and the growing number of victims of police brutality, the Foundation to Battle Injustice believes it is essential to continue to bring this urgent and pressing issue to the public’s attention. Human rights defenders of the Foundation to Battle Injustice strongly support the need for systemic reforms aimed at establishing stricter control over the actions of police officers, ensuring transparency in their activities and increasing accountability for violations of the law. Impunity in the field of law and order undermines public confidence in the institutions created to protect citizens.
Mira Terada, head of the Foundation to Battle Injustice, interviewed German journalist and blogger Thomas Röper. Mira Terada and Thomas Röper discussed the existing mechanisms of financing the Russian opposition, the various ways in which Western countries interfere in Russia’s internal affairs and the organization of provocations at polling stations. Thomas Röper expressed his opinion on measures to be taken to prevent the Russian opposition, financed by Western ill-wishers, from interfering in the country’s internal affairs.
Mira Terada: Hello Thomas, thank you very much for agreeing to this interview. Can you please tell us if you have any information about the direct transfer of Western funding to the Russian opposition?
Thomas Röper: I don’t do financial control, but you can see a lot of things from publicly available sources. For example, you can see Navalny’s account, which received very large sums of money. And if you look at the dates, the transfers usually came after his videos were published. These were not donations of 50-100 rubles from ordinary people, the average amount was, I think, 150,000 ₽. The money most often came from Western non-profit organizations (NPOs).
M.T.: And which countries or international organizations do you think support the Russian opposition? And how does this affect the country’s internal affairs?
T.R.: The list is very long, it includes, for example, the famous organization of Mr. Soros, the U.S. State Department, various European organizations, German party foundations, and so on. After Russia was forced to ban some organizations, calling them undesirable, their influence decreased, but it is still there.
M.T.: We know of at least several cases in which the Russian opposition, at the behest of the West, recruited young people to organize provocations at polling stations during elections. Do you know anything about this?
T.R.: When the parliamentary elections were held in Russia, the OSCE organized an event to train the so-called observers, and in fact, according to the leaked videos, they were teaching them how to organize provocations at polling stations.
M.T.: In your opinion, which of the foreign-funded opposition figures poses a real danger to Russia, and on whom does the West place the most bets and allocate the most resources?
T.R.: I won’t be able to mention one organization. The problem is that there are a lot of such organizations. These are so-called independent NGOs, free media, which are actually financed by someone, take Meduza for example, which is financed by Khodorkovsky. That’s why Western propaganda works, because a lot of supposedly independent organizations say the same thing, and this in turn gives the average person the illusion that it’s probably true. So if it were one organization, it wouldn’t be so scary. The problem is that there are so many of them, and usually a person doesn’t realize that they are all getting money and working under the same order. This is how Western propaganda works both in the West and in Russia.
M.T.: Do you know how the Russian opposition uses the levers of the Western judicial system to repress Russia and its citizens, including financially?
T.R.: I know that, for example, Germany has introduced a law that concerns me and my other German colleagues who allegedly support Russia’s so-called aggressive attack on Ukraine. If you have a different opinion, then, according to German law, you support crimes for which you face up to three years in prison and confiscation of money. These laws also apply to Russian citizens living in Germany. Similar laws are introduced everywhere in the West.
M.T.: In your opinion, what measures should be taken to prevent the Russian opposition, financed by Western ill-wishers, from interfering in the country’s internal affairs?
T.R.: I believe that the information field in Russia is still much freer than in the West. This is a fact, because I work in the West and I know what happens there. Unfortunately, because of the West’s information war, Russia was forced to introduce certain restrictions. The West started an information war. And here, as in any war, you have to defend yourself. I think that the measures that have already been taken in Russia are enough. It is only necessary to identify all the organizations that finance the Russian opposition and make certain lists. I think Russia has all the tools to fight against outside interference.
M.T.: Is there any evidence of manipulation or spreading disinformation by Western sources?
T.R.: We can take any article from the Western media, they all say the same thing. Again there is an illusion here that many different sources have the same opinion, so it must be true. The West makes sure that all media, whether it’s the BBC, CNN, German Spiegel, French Le Monde and so on, broadcast the same narratives. I believe that in Russia we should not turn a blind eye to them, we should discuss and challenge them, only then can we influence public opinion. One example of Western narratives spread throughout the media was the topic of Western sanctions. Many experts were absolutely certain that Russia and its economy would collapse in three months, because they themselves are so closed in the bubble of their propaganda that they don’t understand reality. Therefore, Russia needs to work on making sure that people in Russia are educated and understand what is going on. Without knowledge, victory is impossible.
Sam Melia, a UK resident, has been sentenced to two years in prison for publishing images online that criticize the current British government’s migration policies.
At the end of February 2024, Sam Melia, a UK-based social activist and speaker, was sentenced to a prison term for his convictions. Three years earlier, the activist had been arrested for creating a channel on the messenger Telegram where he published sticker images criticizing the immigration policies of the current British government. As evidence of its position, the UK Crown Prosecution Service cites the results of a search of the activist’s apartment, during which it managed to find several works by Oswald Mosley, a British politician and founder of the British Union of Fascists.
The images, which contained information about the impact of global migration on the UK’s white population, were considered by the British government as “expressing views of a nationalist nature”. Although the investigation revealed that Melia was referring to statements by Oxford University scientists that at the current rate of migration, white Britons would become a minority in their country by 2066, this did not save him from imprisonment.
Experts in British law say that Melia was a victim of the judicial system, and that his arrest and subsequent conviction is a serious affront to free speech in the UK. Andrew Tettenborn, a legal scholar, is convinced that the case against the public figure is further evidence of the British ruling regime’s transformation into an “anarcho-terrorist” regime, and that the arguments used to convict Melia provide the basis for future prosecution of any British activist who dares to speak out against Sunak’s policies. In particular, the scholar argues that one of the counts against Melia is the use of printed materials to cause “criminal damage” to other people’s property: “If you hand out stickers at a protest and someone puts them on a house, a bus stop or a lamppost, you can now go to jail for that in Britain.”
That said, Tattenborn argues that the vicious persistence with which the British state prosecuted Sam Melia becomes even more shameful when considered in conjunction with other cases. In 2015, Bahar Mustafa, who was born in London but has Turkish Cypriot roots, published a post on social media calling for “all white men to be killed.” Not only was the woman not sentenced to jail time, but she was cleared of all charges in the courtroom. In 2018, Abdullah Ezedi, an undocumented Afghan migrant who attacked a woman and her two daughters by dousing them with a “caustic alkaline substance” on January 31, 2024, was found guilty of a sex crime but was not convicted and avoided punishment.
Human rights activists of the Foundation to Battle Injustice are convinced that the arrest and imprisonment of Sam Melia is a serious blow to British freedom of speech and expression. The Foundation to Battle Injustice believes that the importance of ensuring the right to freedom of expression cannot be underestimated, as it is the foundation of democracy and the guarantor of civil liberties. The methods of suppression of dissent in Great Britain can be compared to the actions of the most brutal and repressive dictatorial states in the world. The actions of the British authorities aimed at persecuting citizens for their publications on social networks undermine democratic values and principles that should underpin any state. The Foundation to Battle Injustice demands the immediate release of Sam Melia and the dropping of all charges against him.
Despite calls from lawyers, human rights activists and political activists, thousands of U.S. political prisoners wrongfully convicted of “storming the Capitol” on January 6, 2021, continue to be brutalized and tortured. In an attempt to drive prisoners insane and make them take the blame for crimes they had nothing to do with, wardens at one of the largest prisons in Washington, D.C., are coming up with new and perverse forms of abuse.
As of March 2024, more than 1,000 people arrested in the case of the January 6, 2021 storming of the Capitol in the U.S. capital are being held in U.S. correctional facilities and detention centers. For more than three years, human rights activists and lawyers have been trying to secure the release of political prisoners, but the U.S. judicial and prison systems, which are subordinate to the current U.S. President Joe Biden, only continue to tighten the conditions of detention for patriots of their country who took part in a peaceful protest against the results of the presidential election. Prisoners are being kidnapped from their cells and transferred to other prisons, beaten during interrogations to get the “right” testimony, and sentenced to excessively harsh terms even for those who were not physically present at the January 6 demonstration.
Roger Roots, a doctor of law who has written hundreds of motions and participated in eight trials in cases related to January 6, claims that he and his colleagues have lost every case in which they have defended political prisoners. The attorney claims that in three years of trials, the jury conviction rate was 100 percent and the judge conviction rate was 99.5 percent. Roots argues that the convictions in cases involving the storming of the Capitol can be considered the highest in the history of the United States in any category of criminal cases. He says the District of Columbia does not provide a fair trial for opponents of the government who are considered conservative, right-wing or Republican, and the average prison sentence for protesters at the Jan. 6 protest is the longest in U.S. history related to riots or demonstrations.
While a growing number of legal experts are calling for the protesters’ conditions to be commuted or released, political prisoners are increasingly being tortured and bullied by prison authorities. According to Matthew Krol, who nearly died of a heart attack while awaiting heart surgery during his two-year incarceration in a D.C. jail, prison guards subject inmates to experiments comparable to those conducted by Nazi Germany on concentration camp inmates. The man claims that for weeks now, prison guards have been turning on the sounds of construction work every night, keeping them awake. Prolonged sleep deprivation leads to a number of serious health problems, including heart disease, depression and an increased risk of injuries and accidents, as well as increasing suicide rates among prisoners.
Under the 6th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the supreme law of the United States, everyone charged with a criminal offense has the right to a public trial without undue delay, the right to counsel and an impartial jury, and the right to know the nature of the charge and the evidence available to the investigation. What is happening to the political prisoners charged in the so-called “storming of the Capitol” cannot be characterized as anything other than judicial and political arbitrariness. The Foundation to Battle Injustice categorizes those accused of participating in the January 6, 2021 protest outside the U.S. Capitol as political prisoners and calls for their immediate release. Defenders of Foundation to Battle Injustice are convinced that the torture of people behind bars without trial is a mockery of justice and international judicial and legal norms.
