Posted by The Intolerance Network
Today, 5th August 2021, WikiLeaks publishes “The Intolerance Network” over 17,000 documents from internationally active right wing campaigning organisations HazteOir and CitizenGO. The documents date from 2001 to 2017 and cover the founding of CitizenGO and early activities of both organisations. The documents are from their internal systems and cover things like: spreadsheets of donors and members, strategy and planning documents, letters, financial charts and legal and training documents.
HazteOir was first founded in 2001 in Spain to campaign for right wing values, in 2013 it founded CitizenGO to spread its work beyond Spanish speaking countries. This dataset includes the founding of CitizenGo, and documents from HazteOir organising, along with US based The Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society, the 2012 World Congress for Families (WCF) in Madrid. The WCF brings together right wing organisations that promote opposition to LQBTQI and reproductive rights, it has been labeled as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and a 2014 Human Rights Campaign report stated “The World Congress of Families (WCF) is one of the most influential American organizations involved in the export of hate”.
Tying all these organisations to together is Ignacio Arsuaga, founder of HazteOir and on the board of CitizenGo and was awarded the 2013 WCF “Man of the Year Award”. The WCF President, Brian Brown – an American campaigner against LQBTQ rights, is also on the board of CitizenGo. Both HazteOir and CitizenGo are part of a larger global network of right wing organisations that work together to push their values in grassroots and political spheres.
CitizenGo partners to push campaigns with a number of organisations, for example it ran a petition with the Population Research Institute “Abortion is NOT a Human Right!”. They work to mobilize grassroot support, and are keen to stress this is their base, however it is clear through the dataset that they aim to raise large funds and influence policy at a high level. A 2019 undercover investigation by OpenDemocracy confirmed ties between Spanish HazteOir and CitizenGo with right wing political parties across Europe in Spain, Italy and Hungary. There have also been reports regarding ties to El Yunque, a secret militant Mexican Group, a tie which HazteOir has tried to try to rid itself of.
Both HazteOir and CitizenGo run their campaigns and other work under the guise of family values but it is clear through the document set that their values are rooted in an extremely ultra conservative Christian context. They do a lot of work online starting petitions but have also worked in the physical world, for example their “hate bus” – a bright orange bus has with slogans such as “boys are boys” has toured in Spain and America.
WikiLeaks publishes this dataset as part of our goal to protect censored documents of political and historical importance. The dataset appears to be the same that was online briefly in 2017 after a hack that was claimed by the “ACAB Gang”, but after legal action was removed from being published on the internet.
Whilst a trend to the right globally is becoming more visible it is important to understand the organisations that are instrumental in working to effect this change. As an important part of this network WikiLeaks believes the documents that show the origins of CitizenGo are an important part of the public record.
WikiLeaks Editor Kristinn Hrafnsson said: “As ultra right wing political groups have gained strength in latter years with increasing attacks on woman’s and LGBT rights, it is valuable to have access to documents from those who have lobbied for these changes on a global basis. The people have a right to know where political policies are hatched”.
As part of WikiLeaks’ belief in not only securing the preservation of, but also ease of use of large datasets, we have worked to ensure that not only is this dataset preserved in our library, but that it is also searchable and well organised so that it can be used by everyone.
We have also worked to redact the documents, which included a lot of personal information which was not relevant to the political importance of the data. We are pleased today to add “The Intolerance Network” to our evergrowing online library, and to be adding to all the valuable work on this topic that has preceeded us.
Partners
Germany – taz
https://taz.de/Online-Petitionen-gegen-Abtreibung/!5786746/
Illustration: Eléonore Roedel
Online petitions against abortion:Attack by the Christian Fundis
The right-wing conservative platform CitizenGo fights Europe-wide against abortion and more LGBTIQ rights. A data leak shows whose money is being used.
An article by: Anne Fromm, Luise Strothmann, Patricia Hecht, Sebastian Erb
5.8.2021,
The letter that the Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofejew received in 2013 is formally beginning. “Thank you very much for the opportunity to personally present our CitizenGo idea to you,” it says. It was written by the Spanish anti-abortion activist Ignacio Arsuaga. He needs money. And the oligarch Malofeyev has money.
Konstantin Malofejew maintains close contacts with the Russian Orthodox Church and President Vladimir Putin. He organizes congresses for anti-abortionists, equating homosexuality with sodomy. He rejects democracy and has excellent contacts with the right-wing parties in Europe. For Arsuaga, he’s the perfect financier. The activist wants to build an international campaign platform that fights against abortion, against equality for homosexuals and against marriage for all.
He’s not planning just any platform. CitizenGo is set to become “the most influential international Christian-inspired mobilization website,” Arsuaga wrote to Malofejew in April 2013. One that “effectively influences national governments, parliaments and international institutions”. He asks for start-up funding of 100,000 euros. A little later, internal correspondence from CitizenGo suggests, Malofejew joins the company.
The letter to Konstantin Malofejew is one of around 17,000 documents that the Wikileaks disclosure platform published on Thursday evening. The taz and other media in Spain, Italy and Mexico were able to view, check and evaluate them in advance. It is likely material that originally came from a group of hackers. The justified her attack on CitizenGo with wanting to defend the rights of gays, lesbians, queers, trans and inter people (LGBTIQ) . According to CitizenGo on its website, hackers gained access to folders belonging to the organization’s president, Ignacio Arsuaga, in 2017. The documents include address lists, financial reports and strategy papers from the early 2000s through 2017.
CitizenGo is legally a registered foundation in Spain. The platform is committed to life, family and freedom, so it says on the website. Internally, the representation is clearer – and more martial. The organization sees itself in a culture war, a battle between the culture of life and the culture of death. In a fight between good and evil.
For CitizenGo, the bad guys are the laicists. Their goal is to take power in order to build a new totalitarianism. You can read about it in strategy papers from the time the organization was founded. The good guys, these are the real Christians who oppose the campaigns of the global left. That is why the organization wants to influence politics all over the world. It intends to build “a generation of conservative leaders” nationally and internationally.
The big defeat
The documents about the beginning of CitizenGo and research into what happened afterwards paint a picture of a movement that has become more professional and international over the past decade. It’s about activists who create global networks of anti-abortionists. An organization that discovers the data of fundamentalists and LGBTIQ opponents as currency and breaks the law in the process. It’s about links to right-wing extremist parties. And it is about influencing the European Parliament, which is working on the laws for 447 million people in Europe.
CitizenGo is celebrating its first success just a few months after it was founded, at the end of 2013. The EU Parliament is to vote on a paper in which it declares that all Europeans have access to abortions and sex education. The paper is up for decision three times, three times it is rejected. This is a massive defeat for many social democrats, leftists and liberals in the European Parliament.
How did a newly founded organization manage to influence parliament in such a way? First, CitizenGo is not alone, but part of an alliance of fundamentalist groups that is emerging at this time. And they are testing something new: they flood the inboxes of the members of parliament with e-mails and start online petitions. CitizenGo collects thousands of signatures against the proposal within a very short time. This grassroots mobilization is unprecedented for European rights up to this point. The toughest opponent of CitizenGo compares the effect with the shot from a powerful weapon.
“When you have a big cannon and fire it for the first time, everyone runs away scared at first,” said Neil Datta at the time about the effect of the petitions. Datta, 50 years old, is working with his organization in Brussels against CitizenGo’s plans. He is an expert on sexual self-determination, a lobbyist for the other side.
Datta heads the European Parliamentary Forum. It is funded by the United Nations and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, among others. The forum brings together EU parliamentarians on the subject of reproductive rights; these are rights that affect sexual and physical self-determination. This includes, for example, gender identity and abortions.
The fact that the European Parliament voted against these rights in 2014 is one of Neil Datta’s greatest defeats. In June 2021, the taz will meet him for a video chat. He is closely monitoring the rise of CitizenGo, because for him the group is “the most important social mobilizer on anti-gene issues in Europe”.
The taz has tried several times to get in touch with CitizenGo. The organization did not respond.
The power of the right has grown
In spring 2021 it looks like the anti-abortionists could repeat their 2013/2014 coup. Again the EU Parliament votes, this time it is about all Europeans having free access to abortion and sex education.
The paper that the MPs will decide on is called the Matić Report – named after the Croatian social democrat Predrag Matić, who introduced the report to parliament. The vote is planned for the summer. From CitizenGo’s perspective, the report is another attempt by evil to take control of Europe.
For the proponents of the report, there is also a lot at stake. Even if Parliament’s resolution is not binding, it does lay a foundation for politics. It can affect grants and accession negotiations. But they won’t get the report through just like that. You have to fight.
The research
What documents do we have
The Wikileaks disclosure platform published a large dataset of confidential documents on Thursday evening. The approximately 17,000 documents mainly describe the internal issues of the right-wing conservative CitizenGo foundation and its Spanish predecessor organization. CitizenGo is one of the key players in the European anti-abortion movement. The taz was able to view, check and evaluate the documents in advance. In 2017, a group of hackers gained access to the personal folders of Ignacio Arsuaga, President CitizenGo, apparently through Dropbox access. A large amount of files were published online for a short time. CitizenGo confirmed the process at the time. The hacking group said in an interview in the Spanish press that they wanted to defend the rights of LGBTQI people by attacking CitizenGo. It is possible that the data that came to the taz via Wikileaks came from this hack. The documents include address lists, financial reports and strategy papers from the early 2000s to 2017.
As we checked
We checked the documents randomly for authenticity: Do the file names and the structure of the stored data make sense? Are there contradictions within the documents or in the metadata of the files? Do the names, dates and other information in the documents match what we can research in public sources? We have no doubt about the authenticity of the documents.
Why we report
The documents show how one of the most influential organizations of the anti-feminist movement in Europe has organized and professionalized itself. In doing so, she uses unfair methods and may break data protection laws. She has ties to various governments and tries to make politics. A policy that aims, among other things, to curtail people’s right to physical self-determination. Observing this scene is one of the core topics of the taz. Since the documents are authentic and relevant, there is a public interest in reporting the content. At the same time as the taz, the Italian daily Il Fatto Quotidiano, the Mexican investigative magazine Contralínea and the Spanish online portal Público are also publishing their research from the documents.
Because CitizenGo’s chances of influencing European politics and thus the people who live in the European Union are much greater this time than eight years ago. It now advertises that it represents more than “15 million active citizens”. The number cannot be checked. According to our research, one thing is certain: The range of CitizenGo has grown. And: Europe has changed. In Poland, abortion is de facto forbidden. Hungary makes politics against queer and trans people. Even in Germany fewer and fewer gynecologists perform abortions. Before voting on the Matić report, one thing is clear: CitizenGo will do everything to ensure that it is rejected.
The fact that the organization can exert such influence on European politics is partly due to the fact that it can bring together different scenes of the religious right. CitizenGo was founded in 2012. Conservative Christians from all over the world meet at the World Congress of Families in Madrid, an annual scene event of the Christian fundamentalist movement against abortion and against the rights of LGBTIQ. At this congress, as Ignacio Arsuaga, the founder of CitizenGo, will later write to the potential Russian financier Konstantin Malofejew, “we realized how important it is that we better coordinate grassroots lobbying for pro-life and pro-family support”.
The Spaniard Arsuaga, born in 1973, is a lawyer, he has worked for law firms and founded a social media agency. Years before, he and two friends launched the Hazte Oír initiative with which they wanted to make their political demands heard. Even then, the means: online petitions. It’s going very well in Spain. Now it should get even bigger, more professional and above all: international. Her name: CitizenGo.
What Ignacio Arsuaga has in mind is a platform that incessantly launches petitions and collects signatures. The role models are more left-wing and alternative political platforms such as Avaaz and Change.org. Arsuaga is ambitious: CitizenGo should have one million members within a year.
He seems to be doing well.
From 2013 Arsuaga will tour the world and present the idea of CitizenGo to selected people. “We vigorously defend the values of life, family and freedom,” it says in a Powerpoint presentation. In addition to a confidante of the Russian oligarch Malofejew, they are gaining an adviser to the Vatican, a functionary of the Christian right in the USA – and the Italian politician Luca Volonté, who was head of the EPP in the Council of Europe until 2013 and who was bribed by two Azerbaijani politicians for the board of trustees .
The large donors give the impetus, the foundation of CitzenGo is made up of small donors from all over the world, many of them from Spain and Latin America. In 2020 alone, the organization collected more than four million euros in donations.
According to an internal presentation, the Germans are particularly generous. You can find out who the people are who are donating to set up the German section in a list from 2015. It is primarily the West German Catholic bourgeoisie, no prominent names: Catholic priest, a man who shortly after sitting in a District Board of AFD, a Catholic who in a letter to the FAZ , it congratulates Poland that it wants to ban abortions. At the beginning of 2016, more than 175,000 people from Germany were listed as members of CitizenGo, a good 3.2 million members worldwide.
CitizenGo becomes part of a scene that is networked successfully, especially internationally. Your actors travel the world, speak at conferences, organize network meetings of pro-life associations. On invitations to these meetings there are references such as “No journalists!” Or “This meeting is strictly confidential”. The public should not notice how the so-called life protection movement is growing. And: This movement is not alone. The so-called life protectors, where Christian fundamentalists, evangelicals and moderate conservatives find one another, enter into an alliance with the right and the extreme right.
The issue of gender politics functions as a hinge. It can be connected to the middle of society – many can agree that “gender gaga” somehow goes too far. On the other hand, gender politics is a core issue of rights. Right-wing politics are inconceivable without the control of the female body. After all, it is also about reproduction and thus quickly about population policy.
CitizenGo recognizes how many people can be addressed with the topic and takes advantage of that. The petitions launched by the foundation touch on different areas of society. One is directed against Netflix because a cartoon series allegedly mocks Jesus there. Another supports the controversial anti-LGBTIQ law in Hungary, which prohibits the positive representation of gays and lesbians, trans and inter people in public.
The Brussels lobbyist Neil Datta has analyzed where the money that the anti-feminist movement invests in Europe comes from. To do this, he evaluated financial reports on 54 organizations for the years 2009 to 2018. According to this, 707.2 million US dollars flowed into the work of the groups, and the trend is rising. The money of Russian oligarchs flows to Europe just like that of conservative Christians from the US with ties to the Trump administration. But: Most of the money comes from the EU itself.
This financial power is used to finance offices close to European institutions, plan campaigns and pay lawyers who write bills in Poland or challenge progressive EU policies in courts.
CitizenGo and its Spanish predecessor organization Hazte Oír are among the most powerful financiers of anti-feminist campaigns in the EU, according to Datta’s figures. Between 2009 and 2018, the two organizations put almost 33 million US dollars into their campaign work.
CitizenGo’s campaigns are not limited to the Internet. In 2017 the foundation sent an orange bus through European countries. The “Freedom of Speech Bus” stopped in Munich, Cologne and Berlin. On his side was the slogan “Stop excessive sex lessons – protect our children”, along with the CitizenGo logo.
According to Datta, CitizenGo is also the organization within the anti-feminist movement that has most successfully internationalized and adapted its strategies to the present. In the past, convinced Christians argued with God. Today they are much more successful when they secularize their statements. The result is a language that sounds like the defense of human rights, but still contains the same fundamental Christian ideas. Pro-life instead of “against abortion”. Pro-family instead of “against marriage for everyone”.
When it comes to gender politics, conservatives and extreme right form alliancesIllustration: Eléonore Roedel
In the 1990s, Neil Datta recalls, there were small groups who organized protests in front of abortion clinics and nothing more. Many of their leaders would have looked old. Neil Datta and his colleagues felt that they were just going to die out. The opposite happened.
The movement has gotten younger. And louder: Some mobilize for demonstrations with white crosses and build youth groups. The others provide legal expertise on laws or network with clerics and politicians.
CitizenGo’s big attack on the Matić report begins in June 2021. The organization is determined to prevent MEPs from voting for the report, which advocates free access to abortions. The choice of words is accordingly belligerent: “The Matic report is probably the most aggressive project that has ever been presented in the European Parliament,” says CitizenGo’s petition. The organization collects 350,000 signatures in just three weeks. The parliamentarians receive the protest in their inbox. Pling, pling, pling. “I am writing to you with concern after learning the details of the Matic report,” begin the often identical e-mails that are sent to Members of Parliament. Several parliamentarians say
The main goal of CitizenGo is clear: political pressure through as many signatures as possible.
From the internal documents it becomes clear, however: The creation of influence by mass is only one aspect. It’s also about data – and money.
350,000 signatures against free abortions mean 350,000 email addresses. 350,000 first and last names and information about the country of origin. And the indication of what topic the person is interested in. CitizenGo now has a valuable currency in hand: information. Highly professional marketing tools, as they are used according to the documents in the online campaigns, make it possible to collect all information about a person, even over a longer period of time. And then specifically addressing certain groups of people for a concern.
If these people are interested enough, you can ask them for money.
That’s why CitizenGo starts so many petitions. Even one that is unsuccessful is not pointless for the organization. A petition that never had a chance of political influence, but appeals to many people emotionally and motivates them to participate, is successful data prey for CitizenGo. They call this “Big Data” on their internal PowerPoint slides.
Ignacio Arsuaga explained how this works at a conference in 2015: “The 3 Step Process for Mass Mobilization” is written over the PowerPoint slide. “We’re building our list – with online petitions. We activate our members and keep them active – that’s why we send so MANY emails, petitions, information. We boldly ask our members for donations for our work. ”Mobilizing people politically is a business model.
The money and data that CitizenGo collects is shared with your allies. Among other things, the foundation sponsors congresses and helps like-minded people to get data. “You will have access to the personal details of the signatories,” said a presentation. Anyone who initiates a petition on the platform can simply download the data of the signatories as a file.
If the contacts of the signatories are really passed on in full, that actually contradicts what CitizenGo itself claims on the site about its handling of data. “If e-mail addresses were actually passed on to other organizations without the consent of those affected, that would represent a serious violation of the GDPR,” says lawyer Tom Jennissen, an expert at the digital society association, the taz.
An example of a data deal among political allies is a cooperation that CitizenGo entered into in 2013 with the US organization ActRight. The organization, which has close ties to the Trump team, transfers CitizenGo $ 50,000 a year for an English-speaking campaign manager. CitizenGo should also benefit from the then 500,000 people in the ActRight database who should be called upon to donate to CitizenGO.
But with the aim of collecting as much data as possible, there are even more serious violations.
During the research, the taz found a data leak at CitizenGo. The names, email addresses, postcodes and countries of origin of the thousands of people who have signed petitions are publicly available on the CitizenGo website. Every data record of a person can be called up via a consecutive number, which means that every Internet user can simply click through the data.
The lawyer Tom Jennissen speaks in connection with the data leak of “a serious violation of the General Data Protection Regulation”. Because CitizenGo is a political petition platform, the information stored there is particularly sensitive. Data from which political opinions can be read should be particularly well protected.
CitizenGo now has an immediate duty to not only inform the responsible data protection authority, but also the users, says Jennissen. “In the event of such a clear and serious violation, the provider could face a serious fine.”
The taz confronted CitizenGo with these allegations. The organization did not respond to this.
CitizenGo is about mass: a cause that thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people signed up for, seems relevant and urgent. The signing must therefore be very easy. The e-mail address with which you sign a petition does not have to be confirmed again as usual. This means that you can sign with any number of imaginary addresses or with the address of another person.
A person who has signed once only needs to enter their email address the next time they sign, all other data is automatically completed. So if you know or guess the e-mail address of someone who has already participated in CitizenGo, you can view their personal details, sign on their behalf and change their details.
If the system is so vulnerable to manipulation, did 350,000 people really sign the petition against safe abortion in Europe in June 2021? Are CitizenGo or other lobbyists artificially pumping up the petition? How great is the pressure on the EU Parliament before the vote on the Matić report?
A closer look at the data shows that it is complicated. The taz has randomly checked both the personal data in the internal documents and the user data available on the website. We found fake identities like Sarah Noname, but also real people.
CitizenGo lost the fight this time. Now they are attacking their toughest adversaryIllustration: Eléonore Roedel
The supporters of CitizenGo, the many small donors – they are real. But if you want to give your petition on CitizenGo more power by unfair means, the platform does not put any obstacles in your way.
And the European anti-feminist movement, on which CitizenGo lives, has – when it comes to generating political pressure – an interest in appearing even bigger than it really is.
The next attack on the Matic report comes three days before the vote in the EU Parliament. Not online, but on the street. Hundreds of people were standing in front of the Federal Chancellery in Vienna on a Monday afternoon in June 2021. The event can be viewed in an internet video. CitizenGo’s representative for Germany is happy about the 350,000 signatures against more rights for women considering an abortion on stage.
The number of demonstrators may seem comparatively small, but you can see who the fundamentalist movement can address in the meantime: It is mainly young people who line up in front of the stage, student audiences. They fan themselves with their demo signs: a wink smiley on a yellow background, above the inscription “Please smile. Your mother decided for you ”.
The 27-year-old organizer in a loose jacket welcomes the bishops and politicians who have come today in a friendly manner. One of them is Gudrun Kugler, a member of the National Council of the ruling conservative ÖVP. “Thank you very much for your commitment, especially on this subject, the Matic report,” the spokesman called out to her. “It is really great to see that Austrian politicians are leaders on a national and international level.”
Gudrun Kugler, big gold earrings, colorful blouse, stands a little apart. She has been a member of the National Council for the ruling ÖVP since 2017, where she is the spokesperson for human rights and displaced persons. Gudrun Kugler was part of CitizenGo when it was founded. “Campaign Manager, German” is next to her name in an internal personnel list from the beginning of 2014. Another document shows a partnership agreement between CitizenGo and Kugler. In response to a taz request, Kugler wrote that CitizenGo had commissioned her husband’s company to set up CitizenGo’s German-language platform. You have “helped sporadically when it was necessary”.
Kugler has arrived where the anti-feminist movement wants to go: in the middle. In Germany, people like Beatrix von Storch have managed to anchor the fight against women’s rights and LGBTIQ in the AfD. But if you want influence, the voices of the right-wing extremists are not enough. That is why many CitizenGo campaigns target the right wing of Christian Democrats and Conservatives.
In Spain, too, CitizenGo is approaching power from the far right. In April 2014 Hazte Oír, the Spanish organization from which CitizenGo was founded, published an election recommendation for the European elections. Favorite: the far-right party Vox, which has only just been founded. She becomes the new ally of Arsuaga and his colleagues. They feel betrayed by the conservative party in Spain; it has become too liberal for them.
Today Vox is the third strongest party in the Spanish parliament and also has influence on the government, it supports a conservative regional president in three regions. Vox is something like a Spanish tea party, right-wing populist to right-wing extremist; for strict immigration rules, for lax gun laws, for a centralized government led by the army. And as far as her socio-political positions are concerned, she is completely in line with CitizenGo, radically anti-feminist.
Officially you are independent of each other, but CitizenGo advertises the positions of Vox and advertises against those of the political competition. And there are also direct personal connections. According to Spanish media reports, a man sat on the CitizenGo Board of Trustees until he became a Vox MP. The father of another member of the Board of Trustees sits in Parliament for Vox. According to the Spanish media, Arsuaga and the party leader are friends.
On June 24th, the members of the European Parliament will vote on the Matic report. Neil Datta, the opponent of CitizenGo, gets up extra early to turn on the parliamentary debate. Between the first and the second vote in parliament, he speaks to the taz via zoom. He wrote down the numbers of the first vote in his notebook earlier: 373 to 288. It looks good for the Matić report, but nothing is certain yet.
“They used exactly the same strategy book as they did back in 2013,” says Datta. Back when CitizenGo shot down its petition cannon for the first time. Why didn’t that work so well this time? Although the organization now has more money, more power. And although the extreme right in Europe has more political influence than it did eight years ago?
It was painstaking detail work. This time Datta warned before it banged, but he didn’t stop at a few words. He brought MEPs’ staff together in Zoom meetings and explained what they would expect in their mailboxes in the coming weeks. He and his team personally addressed many MEPs from the European People’s Party, because everything depended on their votes. They negotiated hard and tried to find compromises in the report. They wrote long emails and prepared MP Predrag Matic that there was a high probability that he would be attacked in person.
Despite all the work, Datta and his people have to deal with a major setback. Despite the negotiations in advance, the conservative EPP brings in its own alternative proposal. If all EPP MPs vote in favor of this counter-motion and the right-wing parties too, then that will be the end of the Matić report. CitizenGo would have won.
But it turns out differently. After an emotional debate, the majority of MEPs voted in favor of the Matic report. The European Parliament is committed to the fact that the self-determination of women about their bodies in the EU must not be restricted. A historic moment.
CititzenGo does not want to accept this defeat. “We fought until the last minute,” employees of the organization later write on Facebook. They promise: “We won’t let up.” They don’t either, they just change the strategy. CitizenGo is now fighting the man who led the resistance against them. You start a petition against Neil Datta and his organization. They are calling for an investigation. 139,951 people have reportedly already signed.
Italy – Il Fatto Quotidiano
From the US to Italy, up to the Vatican leaders: the exclusive documents of Wikileaks on the hidden financiers of Catholic extremism on the Fact
The 17 thousand files that Wikileaks will disseminate exclusively, tomorrow, with Fatto, the Spanish and German newspapers Publico and Taz and with the Mexican magazine Contralinea allow to open a rift in the internal dynamics of the ultra-conservative Spanish Catholic organization Hazte Oir and its international arm, CitizenGO, on the front line against the LGBTQi community, against euthanasia, abortion, women’s rights
by Stefania Maurizi | AUGUST 5, 2021
They come at the right time. While in Italy and in countries such as Hungary there are political and religious wars over the rights of the LGBTQi community. Over 17 thousand documents just revealed by WikiLeaks exclusively with Il Fatto Quotidiano , with the Spanish and German newspapers Publico and Taz and with the Mexican magazine Contralinea allow to open a rift in the internal dynamics of the ultra-conservative Spanish Catholic organization Hazte Oir and its international arm , CitizenGO , on the front line against the Lgbtqi community , againsteuthanasia , abortion , women’s rights .
Hazte Oir and CitizenGO are part of the coalition of associations that organize the World Congress of Families (World Congress of Families), which in 2019 was held in Verona and was attended by Matteo Salvini . And they are a nursery of candidates for the Spanish ultra-right that is the Vox party . The files allow to document in detail and over the course of more than a decade Hazte Oir’s relations with a whole well-known network, ranging from the Catholic and Christian right-wing organizations of the United States to Russian ultraconservatives, such as Konstantin Malofeev and Alexey Komov. .
The importance of these documents is also due to the fact that they allow us to reconstruct the network of donors , from the United States to Spain to Italy, and relations with the highest spheres of the Vatican and the Catholic world that matters. Finally, in the database there are files on the infamous secret Catholic organization El Yunque . Il Fatto Quotidiano will publish the full investigation based on the documents tomorrow .
“While ultra-right groups have strengthened in recent years, with increasing attacks on the rights of women and the LGBT community, it is important to have access to documents on those who have lobbied them globally. Public opinion has the right to know where political choices originate from, ” Icelandic investigative journalist Kristinn Hrafnsson , director of WikiLeaks , told Fatto Quotidiano .
The organization returned to publishing despite the founder, Julian Assange , remaining in the Belmarsh maximum security prison in London . He has been there since April 2019, waiting for British authorities to decide whether to extradite him to the United States, where he faces 175 years in prison for publishing secret US government documents that have allowed it to reveal war crimes and torture . Last January, British judge Vanessa Baraitser denied extradition solely and exclusively on the basis of her serious mental health condition.. But the United States has appealed and the first hearing will be held next week. Julian Assange’s life and freedom remain hanging by a thread.
Mexico – Contralinea
https://contralinea.com.mx/mexico-en-el-epicentro-de-la-conspiracion-internacional-de-la-ultraderecha/
thursday, august 05, 2021
Zosimo Camacho
Aug 05, 2021 at 1:34 pm
Mexico, at the epicenter of the international conspiracy of the extreme right
Make yourself heard and Citizen Go maintain one of their main bastions in Mexico . Sectors of the PAN serve as coverage ; They count as a formal structure Citizengo México and surreptitiously the organization Yo Influyo , where Foxistas and Calderonistas converge ; they are coordinated with the high clergy and the equally extreme right-wing Foundation Including Mexico and Red Familia ; They have the favor of businessmen from Coparmex ; and academics from the UP , ITAM , Anáhuac and theITESM give ideological support to their doctrine. Wikileaks , in association with Contralínea and three other media in the world, reveals the insides of the global coordination of the conservative movement
Mexico reveals itself as the origin of one of the most powerful far-right movements in the world, ready to lead an international “ crusade ” to win the “ cultural war ” against those who have “desecrated” “human nature”. The project, started in the middle of the last century with El Yunque in Puebla, found the conditions to grow in Europe as of 2001. Wikileaks reveals the network that, based in Mexico and Spain, expanded to 50 countries .
With El Yunque embedded in the government of Vicente Fox in Mexico (2000-2006), the lawyer Ignacio Vicente Arsuaga Rato – identified in investigations by the Spanish press as an alleged member of that secret society – founded the Hazte Oír ( HO ) association in 2001 and, later in 2015, Citizen Go ( CG ) in Madrid, Spain. Financial and human resources never stopped flowing from Mexico .
The communicating vessels Spain-Mexico expanded their networks to five dozen countries in Europe and America, mainly. A series of internal communications , organization charts , lists of contacts , partners and donors , as well as sketches, projects, declarations of principles and the political-social agendas of both organizations based in Spain account for the above.
It is about just over 17 thousand documents that Wikileaks reveals, in association with Contralínea. Investigative journalism (Mexico), Il Fatto Quotidiano (Italy), Público (Spain) and Taz (Germany). The files occupy around 43.5 gigabytes and most are in PDF, Word, JPG, Exel, Power Poin, HTM, Gif formats, among others. That is, it is about written documents, budgets , listings, images , videos, audios , web page designs .
Several internal documents reveal that the Mexican organization Yo Influyo is part of the international structure in Mexico of HO and Citizen Go. An organization chart , dating from 2007, gives an account of the then actual structure of HO, beyond the one formally recorded. In most cases, the full names of those who hold the portfolios are not available. Only a surname, nickname or short name are noted. In the “international” part of the structure, Fernando García and “Rosy Abascal” stand out as delegates in Mexico , while it is stated that Yo Influyo is part of its network. Rosa Martha Abascal Olascoaga is the executive director of the organization and eldest daughter of Carlos María Abascal Carranza(1949-2008), one of the founders of El Yunque and Secretary of the Interior during the six-year term of the PAN Vicente Fox Quesada (2000-2006).
The brothers Juan Ignacio Zavala and Margarita Zavala , wife of former President Felipe Calderón, actively participate in this association . In the last month, together they published 20 articles on the site http://www.yoinfluyo.com to defend the “achievements” of the PAN governments, criticize the current federal government and campaign against the last consultation that sought to investigate and judge former presidents for probable crimes committed.
For its part, Citizengo México was incorporated on October 15, 2015, through act 99,787 , book 2,367, at Notary 217 of Mexico City. The civil association was registered by Luis Losada Pescador , Ignacio Vicente Arsuaga Rato and Álvaro María de Zulueta Velázquez Duro . The day after it was incorporated, it was registered in the Federal Taxpayers Registry (RFC), with the number CME151015GZ2.
In the statutes of Citizengo Mexico it can be read that the civil association does not pursue profit . Among other provisions, it assures that it does not have the purpose of “ partisan or political-electoral proselytism ” either.
However, according to the same files revealed by Wikileaks, they promote the Catholic Vow blog in Mexico together with parallel social media accounts, aimed at promoting anti-abortion, confessional candidates that are generally found in the PAN. It also promotes the candidacies for ministers of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation of characters with this ideological coincidence.
In its closed presentation in Mexico, Citizengo set the goal of becoming “the first platform for conservative activism on the internet.” Regarding his strategies, according to the Power Point file that served as the basis for the exhibition, he asserted, among others: “Publicly denounce and combat international institutions and organizations that are contrary to Christian values ” ( sic ). In addition: “Formalize strategic alliances with the structures of the Catholic Church and Christian churches ” ( sic ).
They even report on their “victories” in Mexico during Enrique Peña Nieto’s administration: “We actively participated in the marches of September 11 and 24 [of 2016] in Mexico that mobilized close to 2 million people. The largest mobilization in the history of Mexico! [ sic ] We also organized 90 national and international demonstrations before the June 5 elections . Thank God, we finally got the controversial initiative of President Peña Nieto to ‘constitutionalize’ gay ‘marriage’ was rejected . ”
In addition, among other political activities, they celebrate that in the State of Mexico “we managed to stop the ‘gaymon’. Good!” ( sic ).
HO notes the organization of several forums, congresses and meetings of the organizations of the world confessional right. To do this, it relies on the structures they have in various countries. Mexico contributes several delegates to each meeting .
For example, at the meeting of the Political Network for Values, which was held in a coordinated manner in various parts of the world on January 21, 2016, the Mexican Rodrigo Iván Cortés and Katharina Rothweiler coincided with Ignacio Arsuaga, on the Board of Directors. . The above according to a file on the organization of the meeting.
The PAN member Rodrigo Iván Cortés Jiménez attended on behalf of the Political Ethics Action Network . Today he is president of the National Front for the Family and Vice President of the Political Network For Values. Under the acronym of PAN, he has been a federal deputy and councilor in Naucalpan, State of Mexico. He graduated in philosophy from the Universidad Panamericana and obtained a master’s degree in Public Administration from the Universidad Anáhuac. He has a specialty in public policy from ITAM. In his curriculum, he highlights having taken “special courses on Defense, National Security and Intelligence at the Defense University in Washington [United States] and at the Galillee College in Israel.”
Katharina Rothweiler, then came on behalf of the International Strategy and Development, Red Familia . This last organization is a partner of the World Congress of Families and another of the bastions of HO and CG in Mexico.
Of course, they are not the only Mexicans in congresses and meetings organized by HO. The Sixth World Congress of Families was attended by, for example, Francisco Javier Albarrán González , from the Diocese of Texcoco; Jesús Antonio Eng , Franco Antonio Osuna , José Roberto Rojas , Susana Ana María Ochoa and Emma Elizabeth Nájar , professors, researchers and / or directors of the Universidad Panamericana, Guadalajara campus; Ana María Jiménez , from PAN, a former local congresswoman famous for saying that homosexuals and the blind are unable to love a partner and, therefore, for marriage.
Also in the relationship are Juan Pablo Capdevila , from the Federation of Parents and Friends of Educational Centers (Fapace), based in Guadalajara; Rosana Topete and Rosa Luz Gómez Morales , from Virtual Learning Environments , from Zapopan, Jalisco.
In addition, HO and CG take advantage of the support of members of the business sector embedded in the structures of the Employers’ Confederation of the Mexican Republic (Coparmex) and the Business Coordinating Council (CCE) to organize, in Mexico, diplomas, courses, seminars and other activities of diffusion of its postulates. Those of “High Level on Lobbying” stand out, organized in conjunction with ITAM, Universidad Anáhuac, and ITESM and Red Familia.
Indeed, the digital file in Power Point with the heading “HazteOir.org and CitizenGO. Some keys ”points out the importance of lobbying for these organizations. “We try to influence politics and society from the awareness, mobilization and useful participation of many citizens who share some values,” says the document.
They point out that they use the ” direct lobby ” and the ” hall lobby .” And it exemplifies: “Direct contact with legislators or the Administration to convince them … Although we also speak with politicians to make the grassroots lobby profitable” ( sic ).
Lobbying is not only to influence public policies and laws, but also to obtain financing and support with human and material resources for their projects. The Citizen Go document, called “Lists and Foundraising”, dated January 19, 2014, assures that on that day the organization had 502 thousand 545 members in 15 countries: Italy , Poland, United Kingdom , Spain, Brazil , Mexico , Canada , Belgium, Argentina , United States, Slovakia , Switzerland, Portugal and Germany. He boasted of having gone from 40,317 on October 13, 2013 to more than half a million in just 3 months.
Another document indicates that in the foundraising campaign at the end of the year 2018, the organization obtained 32,846.79 euros, through 2,484 donations. Of these, 50 came from Mexico for an amount of 1,129.61 euros.
The far right of HO and CG demands firmness from their allies. Even in Spain, they considered the right-wing Popular Party (PP) timid and ended up breaking with it. A letter addressed only to select members of HO, of a “confidential” nature, signals the organization’s break with the PP. He shows that he is working on the formation of a new political party more to the right. Later it would be known that he was referring to Vox . Because it is a male, it does not indicate the names of the recipients or the signatories.
The document is dated October 2014 and warns that the new political institute must be based on two non-negotiable postulates: “1. Let it be clearly pro-life , pro- family and proliberty ”. And “2. That it has possibilities of obtaining some parliamentary representation ”.
From the archives it is known that HO forces collaborators and workers to form a strict confidentiality agreement . According to another template that must be signed by all those who are labor related with HO, the workers and collaborators undertake to keep confidential ” any information exchanged between the parties.” That is, even the most trivial matters.
The base document dates from October 14, 2010. It is dated before the scandals broke out when El Confidencial , in Spain, released its investigations into the alleged origin of the HO in El Yunque. Later, in the middle of the legal dispute, the control over what the members of the organization should say was sharpened. An internal provision accounts for the efforts to publicly dissociate himself from El Yunque, without condemning him.
The “confidential” document orders the members of HO and CG a policy of responding to the media “so as not to screw up ” in the face of questions about their relations with El Yunque. Entitled, “Response to the requests for information on the case ‘El Yunque’ from 9-5-14,” the letter states:
“If any medium contacts HazteOir.org (HO) from today until the moment the sentences are announced to request interviews , statements or more information, the response will be as follows:
“’On this issue Make You Hear It has already been stated previously and we are not going to make any further assessment , nor are we going to give an opinion until the courts pronounce themselves so as not to interfere in the work of Justice.
“‘Thanks a lot’
“If any medium contacts Make You Hear once the sentences are made public to request an assessment, interview or statement in this regard, the response will be as follows:
“Option 1. Judgment in favor
“’Hazte Oír can only show its satisfaction with the ruling that shows that Hazte Oír was right in denouncing that the accusations against our entity were false . In any case, we are going to study the sentence in detail and once we do, we will make a more detailed assessment of it. Thanks a lot.’
“Option 2. Judgment against:
‘”In the first place, Make You Hear wants to show its respect for Justice, although it cannot agree or share the ruling issued on this case. Once we study and analyze the sentence in detail, we will make an assessment of it. Thanks a lot.’
“IMPORTANT: As much as the media insist, we must not get out of these arguments to avoid talking more than necessary and screw up. With this argument, Make yourself Oir is not silent and gains time to prepare an adequate and timely response to each scenario. ” ( sic )
Ignacio Arsuaga has a law degree from the Universidad Pontificia de Comillas , a career that he studied from 1991 to 1996, and a master’s degree in law from Fordham University School of Law , New York, NY, postgraduate studies in the United States between 1998 and 1999. He worked as in-house lawyer for American Express Spain. According to an undated version of his curriculum vitae, he has presided over HO since the Organization’s founding in 2001. He was born on April 5, 1973.
In the archives, even critical books on allied or co-religious organizations abound. For example, there is the complete book by the Mexican Edgar González Ruiz, Muro. Memories and testimonies 1962-2001 (GEP-BUAP, 2003). The book painstakingly documents the history of the Movimiento Universitario de Renovadora Orientación (MURO), its relationships in El Yunque, and other secret violent far-right organizations in Mexico.
There are no internal documents of HO or CG that demarcate these organizations from El Yunque or that are contrary to their postulates and strategy. Even less, that they condemn her. What is observed are coincidences when assuming part of an organization chosen by God to defend the values that, they assure, are Christian.
For example, letters from Ignacio Arsuaga to “VIP” members, that is, “very important” of HO, show that they are assumed in a kind of update of the medieval “ Crusades ” in favor of the values of the Catholic religion . Specifically, they refer to a “culture war.” An excerpt from the document reads:
“[…]
“I would be very grateful if you could confirm, by return mail, if you can accompany the representatives of the World Congress of Families on Saturday 25. Larry and Don are two of the main exponents of the conservative , pro-life and pro -family movement in the United States … A movement that, as you know, is winning on the other side of the ocean that ‘ culture war ‘ that here, in Old Europe, we seem to be losing.
“[…].”
In addition, in a document that refers to the organization of the VI World Congress of Families (2012), by HO, there is a summary of its ideological position. In the letter, the concept of a “ natural family ” (“the voluntary union of a man and a woman in the marriage alliance for life”) stands out as the first non-negotiable point, and that this model excludes any other. They also consider that the series of freedoms that the 1968 movement generated only “ broke ” and, worse still, “ desecrated ” “human nature”.
The document urges HO members and partners not to shut up: defend and promote their doctrine from the rooftops and always be ready to angrily contradict those who have different opinions. They disapprove of “lukewarmness.” They extol the dictator Francisco Franco , whom they revere for having stood up to the progressives “with a force of equal quality and intensity. First, with a ‘crusade’ and, once the war was won, with a dictatorship, without hiding, at least, that his was that: a dictatorship ”.
In this “culture war” or “crusade” they promote Christian propaganda with films such as The Great Miracle , where the bishops exhort their parish priests to take their parishioners to the movies. In one of the letters sent to the priests by their superior clerics, it reads:
“Dear friend.
“In the context of the celebration of The Year of Faith, an initiative has arisen that I find very interesting.
“This is the first animated film about Holy Mass. It is from a Mexican production company and now it is going to be released in cinemas throughout Spain.
[…]. ”
For this reason they exhort to lead the parishioners to consume this type of catechesis.
The Great Miracle is an animated film that was released in 2011 by the Dos Corazones production company, under the direction of Bruce Morris, the script by Luis De Velasco and the music by Mark MacKenzie. It deals with the Catholic rite of the mass.
Similarly, the Mexican film La Cristiada was also promoted . Invitations were even printed for this in the name of the VI World Congress of Families.
La Cristiada , or For Greater Glory: The True Story of Cristiada , was produced by Century Studios Fox in 2012, under the direction of Dean Wright, the script by Michael Love, the music by James Horner and the photography by Eduardo Martínez Solares.
Before publishing, the media associated with Wikileaks jointly requested an interview with HO and CG. Until the closing of the edition, no response was obtained.
Document: HO Organization Chart
https://contralinea.com.mx/wikileaks-en-contralinea-los-amargos-frutos-de-el-yunque/
Zosimo Camacho
Aug 06, 2021 at 6:29 pm
Wikileaks in Contralínea: the bitter fruits of El Yunque
Unbeatable, Wikileaks returns to the fray with the dissemination of files that governments, organizations and people in positions of power wish to keep hidden . On this occasion it uncovers the most important western conglomerate of the extreme right , whose open expressions are the Spanish Hazte Oír (HO) and Citizen Go (CG) , founded and formally directed by the Spanish lawyer Ignacio Vicente Arsuaga Rato .
To publicize the content of the more than 17 thousand files of various formats (texts, organization charts , lists, photographs, videos, audios), Wikileaks partnered in the information project called ” FX ” with four different media outlets. latitudes of the world. In addition to this Mexican investigative journalism house, Contralínea , Público , from Spain; Il Fatto Quotidiano , from Italy, and Taz , from Germany. All, characterized by the honesty and thoroughness of their investigations.
Contralínea analyzed and valued the files. And he decided to publish reports based on them based on the principles that since their origin are the beacon of reference both in quiet times and in stormy times: search for truth , independence and commitment to society .
Many of the archives have value on their own, because they reveal HO and CG financing, structure , agendas, political intentions ; but the greatest value is the one obtained from observing the set of thousands of folders. The existence of an international secret society with networks in 50 countries is noted .
Already the Spanish press, notably the newspaper El Confidencial , since 2012 had revealed the links between HO and El Yunque de México. Arsuaga and company took this case to court … and only caused it to be aired more. Testimonies of former and active yunquistas paraded through the Spanish courts, which spread these stories profusely in the media. For this reason, for the Judicial Power of that country the relationship of both organizations was made clear and this was written in an official document. But now what is exposed with the disclosure of Wikileaks is the current operation in Mexico of the HO and CG networks through front organizations .
As reported in detail in this issue, the Yo Influyo organization is part of the international structure of HO, according to the organization’s actual organization chart found in its internal files. This platform in Mexico is headed by Rosa Martha Abascal Olascoaga , the eldest daughter of Carlos María Abascal Carranza , who was Secretary of the Interior during the six-year term of Vicente Fox (200-2006) . And among its main collaborators are the brothers Margarita and Juan Ignacio Zavala . Yes, the wife and brother-in-law of the person who held the Mexican Executive Power from 2006 to 2012, prior to electoral fraud :Felipe Calderón Hinojosa .
Other Mexican politicians , academics , religious and businessmen are part of the HO and CG networks, as can be read in the Contralínea reports . The far right is within its right to convene, meet and organize. But what is now revealed is that they are part of an international conspiracy willing to use whatever means are to impose “the kingdom of God on Earth”, as can be read in various documents.
It is not that all the members of both Yo Infuyo and HO and CG are en bloc part of the secret organization. It is the leaders of these organizations that maintain the parallel clandestine network . They assume fundamentalist Catholics and maintain that their values are Christian. In their internal documents they see themselves as ” crusaders ” who maintain a ” culture war ” against liberalism, “progressivism” and the left.
It should be noted that his “Christianity” finds opposition not only in secular, secular spaces, but within the Catholic Church itself . In the documents revealed by Wikileaks there is also a series of epistolary exchanges that are true lawsuits between currents of the clergy. And, of course, there are Catholic currents of the option for the poor who would never commune with El Yunque.
HO and CG are organizations in a position of power that have lied even to their own members and incubate hate groups towards people of sexual diversity , women who fight for the right to decide over their own body; and they maintain that the only possible family is one formed by a man and a woman who are united forever ( sic ).
They further maintain that the series of freedoms achieved as a result of the 1968 world movement constitutes in reality a “ desecration ” of “human nature”.
This is the real ideology of characters like Margarita Zavala and Felipe Calderón, suddenly transformed a few months ago into defenders of feminist protests and of children with cancer who lack medicines. This same Margarita, who will be a deputy in the next Legislature, is the one who today “stands in solidarity” with the relatives of the mortal victims of crime and who says, with another fellow member: “The good guys are more.” Today they are naked. We already knew what they represented. But now they cannot deny it.
Revelations such as those presented by Contralínea today in this edition are those that annoy power . When we see the “solidarity” of these characters and these organizations with women and with legitimate social movements, we must not forget that it is El Yunque who smiles at them kindly.
Wikileaks no longer stops . The work of Julian Assange survives but is in prison and is being slowly killed by a trasnaciona power l settled in the United States . Freedom for the activist and journalist who in the name of humanity suffers a confinement dictated by the powerful. His sin , his great audacity, was to defend at all costs the right to know and to have undressed power.
But that’s what it’s about: stripping power; to formal and de facto power.
Alba Olea
Aug 06, 2021 at 5:43 pm
Make yourself heard and Citizen Go criticize Wikileaks leak; They accuse campaign against “pro-life voices”
Ignacio Arsuaga, president of the Spanish far-right organizations Hazte Oír and Citizen Go , affirmed that the revelation made by Wikileaks of more than 17 thousand internal files that uncover its penetration strategy in 50 countries is part of a smear campaign against “pro- voices. life, pro-family and pro-Christian throughout the world ”.
Through a public statement, Arsuaga asked the international media involved in the publication of the information – Taz from Germany, Il Fatto Quotidiano from Italy, Contralínea from Mexico and Público from Spain – to remove from their websites all articles that make reference to the documents, since their obtaining “could constitute one or more crimes according to the provisions of the Spanish Penal Code.”
The representative of the organizations stated that, although they have not reviewed the content of all the leaked documents, their content was altered and decontextualized. He urged the media to refrain from using and disseminating the information and called for the destruction of the files, allegedly taken from his hard drive.
“If you do not remove the aforementioned articles from your website and agree to our requests, we will proceed to initiate the relevant legal actions,” said Arsuaga in his communication, who also considered that the dissemination of personal data related to the ideology of European citizens could breach the General Data Protection Regulation of the European Union 2016/679.
Through his social networks, Hazte Oír affirmed that “the extreme left and Wikileaks are coming together to launch a smear campaign” and that “they promote hatred and extremism” against him.
Erika ramirez
Aug 07, 2021 at 7:03 pm
WikiLeaks: far right, organized from the transatlantic Political Network for Values
WikiLeaks reveals that the far right acts in an international “transatlantic” network to promote its anti-abortion, anti-gender, anti-sex education and pro-family “values” – that is, pro-life, pro-family and pro-Christian – through the Political Network organization. for Values (Political Network for Values). Its members include organizations such as Citizen Go, from Spain, and the Political Ethical Action Network, linked to the National Action Party in Mexico.
Among the more than 17 thousand files that WikiLeaks shared with Contralínea , the document called “Proposal for the board of the Political Network for Values” stands out, which discovers the participation of right-wing figures in those countries and the United States, mainly. In these nations, strategies are developed in favor of their “principles”, such as the defense of life, from conception; the family, as the basic unit of society; marriage, as an institution between man and woman, among others.
In its article The Network of Intolerance , WikiLeaks indicates that the organizations Hazte Oír and Citizen Go “are part of a larger global network of right-wing organizations that work together to advance their values in the political and grassroots spheres”, through hate campaigns.
Document: The Political Network for Values | Preliminary program
The editor of the organization founded by Julian Assange, Kristinn Hrafnsson, has indicated that: “As far-right political groups have gained traction in recent years with increasing attacks on women’s rights and LGBTQI +, it is valuable to have access to the documents of those who have lobbied for these changes worldwide. People have the right to know where the policies are hatched ”.
The platform reveals that the Organizing Committee is made up of Americans: Brian Brown, from the National Organization for Marriage; Benjamin W Bull (ADF, Alliance Defending Freedom); the Spaniards Ignacio Arsuaga, president of Citizen Go, Lola Velarde, Executive director of Political Network for Values; Jaime Mayor Oreja, from the Fundación Valores y Sociedad; the Mexicans, Rodrigo Iván Cortés, president of the National Front for the Katharina Rothweiler Family and Mario Romo, of the Red Familia, Mexico and the Italian Lucca Volonté, of the Nova Terrae Foundation.
Said characters have the commitment to contribute to the right organization resources in time or money. In addition, he warns, they would be the co-sponsors of each summit or organized activity, “so it implies an economic contribution. The logos of the entities belonging to it would appear in the corresponding program ”.
Document: PROPOSAL FOR THE BOARD of the POLITICAL NETWORK FOR VALUES
Meanwhile, information from the Political Network for Values indicates that the IV Budapest 2021 Transatlantic Summit will take place next November, to be held in the Hungarian Parliament. “The Political Network for Values is a transcontinental platform in favor of life, family and fundamental freedoms as a space for meeting and exchanging reflections and best practices. The Network and its allied organizations will bring together political representatives from Europe, the Americas and other regions of the world at their IV Transatlantic Summit, which will be held in the Hungarian Parliament ”, he indicates.
Within their program they will deal with: “Conservative and Christian values in the European Union”, “The protection of human dignity” and “Religious freedom”.
Spain – Público
Great fortunes and senior Spanish executives financed the birth of Vox from the ultra-Catholic group Hazte Oír
‘Público’ reveals exclusively for Spain the new WikiLeaks macro-leak: 17,000 internal documents from Hazte Oír and CitizenGo prior to the meteoric takeoff of Santiago Abascal’s party, including the lists and contributions of the “big-big donors” that made it possible the electoral boom of the extreme right.
Santiago Abascal and Ignacio Arsuaga, in 2012 when Hazte Oír awarded one of its awards to the leader of Vox, who then presided over the Foundation for the Defense of the Spanish Nation (Denaes). – Make yourself heard
MADRID
08/05/2021 08:03 UPDATED: 08/05/2021 20:21
CARLOS ENRIQUE BAYO@TABLEROGLOBAL
The platform for leaks and protection of whistleblowers WikiLeaks returns to the fore today (after a long period of silence due to the imprisonment in London, under total solitary isolation, of its creator, Julian Assange) with a joint publication by Italian media ( Il Fatto Quotidiano ), Germany ( Taz ), Spain ( Public ) and Mexico ( Contralínea ), of thousands of internal and confidential documents generated by the far-right Spanish organizations Hazte Oír and CitizenGo between 2001 and 2017, in a project called The Intolerance Network ( Network Intolerance )
Removed from all personal identifications protected by the Data Protection Law, and verified one by one by Wikileaks and by the media that we have collaborated for months in this investigation, two thousand files have been discarded to maintain a library of about 17,000 documents , which include propaganda and fundraising campaigns, internal instructions on the management of adverse information , power-points , letters addressed to international partners and much more.
The material covers both the activities of Hazte Oír, founded in 2001 by Ignacio Arsuaga Rato (third nephew of Rodrigo Rato and close friend of the leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal) , and CitizenGo, which Arsuaga itself launched in 2013 as a platform international organization and has extended its operations to fifty countries, with permanent headquarters in 15 cities.
From an initial equity of 3,000 euros to campaigns of two million: this is how Hazte Oír grew with the fiscal benefits of the PP
DANILO ALBIN
Among the highlights of this entire database are the Excel tables with all the donors who financed the birth and growth of this ultra-Catholic international platform, as stated in its Guide to Communicate in Crisis Situations (whose 2014 draft was marked by water as “Confidential”):
” HazteOir is financed solely and exclusively with the contributions and donations of its members and people who want to help us” […] “It has almost 7,000 members, more than 20,000 collaborators and more than 400,000 supporters “.
Millionaires to fund the World Congress of Families
Undoubtedly, the Excel studied by those of us who have participated in this new Wikileaks world exclusive show small donations from thousands of people, which are recorded with their addresses, emails and telephones. But in addition to the many ordinary citizens who contribute quotas, numerous millionaires and senior executives stand out, among which there are great fortunes that are not members but contributed many thousands of euros for events such as the World Congress of Families in 2012 , the year in which for the first The annual World Family Congress (WFC) organized by the American The Howard Center for Family was once held in Spain and brings together the hard core of ultra-Catholic associations from around the world.
Juan José Tamayo: “The alliance between the extreme right and religious fundamentalism is consolidated in Spain”
DANILO ALBIN
In 2017, that WFC took place in Budapest, with the participation and intervention of the far-right Hungarian Prime Minister, Víctor Orban , and the 2019 one, which was held in Verona, was attended by the then Vice President of the Italian Government and leader of the neo-fascist Northern League, Matteo Salvini .
That year 2012 in which the WFC was organized in Spain by HazteOír, the list of “great donors” includes 800 people who contribute a few hundred euros each, but in that same Excel there is a second page, identified as “Big Big Donors “in which there are 209 contributors to the finances of the ultra-Catholic organization , with contributions of thousands of euros, and where some well-known names are obvious, such as those of Esther Koplowitz (FCC), Isidoro Álvarez (El English Court) or Juan Miguel Villar-Mir (OHL).
Here below we reproduce the beginning of that list, where we have crossed out the names of all those who do not have a clear public relevance, as well as all the personal data of telephone numbers or addresses (those that remain, correspond to the corporate headquarters of the companies they run the corresponding personalities):
Sesame Street, Disney or Lego dolls, victims of the homophobic boycotts of Hazte Oír and its international lobby
DANILO ALBIN
Beginning of the Excel Make Yourself Heard called “Big Big Donors” on the occasion of the World Congress of Families and the March for Life (anti-abortion), both acts of 2012. – Wikileaks
From Grupo Eulen to Esther Koplowitz and Villar Mir
The first on the list, for having contributed 20,000 euros to the National Congress of Families, is David Álvarez Díez, owner of Grupo Eulen (a multinational empire of outsourced services with more than 84,000 employees in a dozen countries) who died in 2015 and He left his seven children locked in a family war without quarter for control of that holding company , with an annual income of around 700 million euros .
In second place (with a 10,000 euro donation) is Esther Alcocer Koplowitz, Marchioness of Peñalver, president at that time of Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas (FCC), and owner of Ritz hotels in various cities around the world, whose fortune Forbes estimated in more 1 billion euros before the pandemic .
The same amount that Esther Koplowitz donated to the ultra-conservative World Congress of Families the late Isidoro Álvarez, who was president of El Corte Inglés , after succeeding his uncle Ramón Areces. On the other hand, Juan Miguel Villar-Mir, former Minister of Finance and then owner of the construction company OHL and many other large companies, contributed half to the same initiative: 5,000 euros.
Hazte Oír boasts of daily harassment for months to the family of Irene Montero and Pablo Iglesias in their home in Galapagar
From the study of the different spreadsheets of the large donors that contributed to the expansion of Hazte Oír, the basis on which the foundations of the Vox party and its electoral successes would later be built, it is concluded that many billionaires participated in the boom of the Spanish extreme right. For example, this same Excel sheet shows other important donors from that year, although they are less well known.
More than 17 million euros in donations
Among them, Bernard Meunier (CEO of Nestlé Iberian Peninsula in 2012 , who was promoted last March to Executive Vice President of Nestlé SA, as well as Director of Strategic Business, Marketing and Sales of the Swiss multinational); Ignacio Esquer De Oñate (secretary of the Board of Directors of Fertiberia, with positions in another ten companies); o Javier Javaloyes (from the Negotiating Agency and the React Group).
Further on the list are other senior executives such as Luis Vilaclara Pont (attorney-in-fact or administrator of a dozen real estate companies).
It is the two hundred donors of this level that allow Make You Hear to close 2013 with a budget of almost two million euros. That year, the then Minister of the Interior of Rajoy, Jorge Fernández Díaz ( today accused in the Kitchen case for the destruction of evidence on Box B of the PP ), signed the resolution that endowed the ultra-conservative lobby , with its international platform CitizenGo, with the tax benefits of a “public utility association”, and from then on donations grew to a total of more than 17 million euros .
Arsuaga asked € 100,000 from a Russian oligarch
Letter from Arsuaga to the Russian oligarch Maloféyev, asking him for 100,000 euros. – Wikileaks
The financial impulse of these Spanish millionaires was combined with other contributions from foreign magnates, as shown by the letter we show, dated in Paris on April 4, 2013, in which Arsuaga asks for a contribution of 100,000 euros from the Russian oligarch Konstantín Maloféyev , founder of the venture capital and investment banking fund Marshall Capital and president of the media group Tsargrady; a far-right think tank that maintains close relations with the ultra-religious lobby of the United States and that hired producer Jack Hanick, of Fox News, to create in 2014 Tsargrad TV, an orthodox fundamentalist channel.
In his letter in English, headed ” Dear Mr. Malofeev ” (English spelling of the Russian surname), Arsuaga thanks you for allowing him to personally present the CitizenGo project, which he hopes will ” become, in three years, the most influential website of the international mobilization of Christian inspiration “. He also informs the Russian mogul that ” we have already found two donors who have pledged to help us launch CitizenGo with 170,000 euros (218,000 US dollars). But we still fell short of 258,000 euros to fund the entire project .”
” I really hope that you are interested in participating in the launch of this project with an initial contribution of 100,000 euros .”
Abascal took off with ultra support in Europe
There is no doubt that the contributions of billionaires to the coffers of CitizenGo managed to turn this ultra-Catholic platform into an international engine for promoting far-right parties and organizations, in view of its rapid expansion and consolidation in fifty countries. Something that also propelled the takeoff of Vox, after its initial electoral failures in Spain, in the European sphere from its participation in the summit of the “Eurosceptic” right in 2017 in Koblenz (Germany), where Abascal established direct contact with the French Marine Le Pen, Dutch Geert Wilders and German Frauke Petry , among other leaders of powerful ultras parties.
However, relations between Arsuaga and Abascal would begin to complicate after the great electoral successes of Vox (2018 and 2019) and their agreements with PP and Ciudadanos to form a right-wing Executive in the Junta de Andalucía and support the regional governments of the right in Madrid and Murcia. So in August 2019 Hazte Oír announced its break with Vox in response to Abascal’s backtracking in his demand to repeal the LGTBI laws: “They have been sold very cheaply,” proclaimed Arsuaga .
In reality, Abascal was also trying to become independent from Hazte Oír, once he had freed himself from the mortgage of his financial support through the generous donors of CitizenGo, to get away from the discredit that the growing evidence that Arsuaga was part of the leadership of the fundamentalist secret society El Yunque, as we will explain in the next chapter of this exclusive.
Do you know why we investigate organizations like this?
Hazte Oír is a dark, ultra-conservative lobby that encourages intolerance and discrimination, and harms vulnerable people and groups with inexpensive campaigns.
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