Category Archives: Viva!

Sexual Assault at Mosques? When Has Religion Stopped Men From Being Predatory?

By Sahiba Bhatia

Photo courtesy: Pixabay

Women are taking to social media to share their disturbing sexual assault experiences during the holy pilgrimage of Hajj.

#MosqueMetoo, a hashtag started by an Egyptian-American journalist Mona Eltahawy, has gone viral. Stories shared with the hashtag talk about the sexual assault ordeals that women have suffered while at the holy grounds of Mecca or any other place of Islamic sanctity.

It all started when a Pakistani woman named Sabica Khan took to Facebook to share a horrifying incident about being groped while fulfilling the ritual of Tawaf during Hajj where one does circuits of the Kaaba. After Khan shared her story, several other women joined in to reveal shocking incidents and how these shattered their perception of purity at a holy place.

In their stories, women talked about being groped, touched or rubbed up against while they were standing amongst the throngs of people congregated at one of the holiest sites in their religion. They further stressed the fact that all this occurred despite them following the Islamic dress code of being covered from head to toe in a hijab.

In the Oscar-winning movie Spotlight, a small team of investigative journalists from The Boston Globe discovers that a huge number of Catholic priests were responsible for sexually abusing children in Boston. The brilliant movie, which is based on a true story, culminates with the credits showing the following line “249 priests and brothers were publicly accused of sexual abuse within the Boston Archdiocese.” The movie also points out similar happenings in countries across the world.

In India too, there have been several accounts of women being abused in the name of religion. One of the most recent and high profile cases being that of the self-proclaimed ‘Messenger of God’, Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh.

And while all this is shocking, is it really all that surprising? When has something like religion or the way a woman is dressed kept predatory men at bay?

The post Sexual Assault at Mosques? When Has Religion Stopped Men From Being Predatory? appeared first on The Ladies Finger.

Sent to Rwanda by Israel: ‘We have no food or work. Don’t come here’

Ahead of a mass planned deportation, +972 Magazine joins two members of Knesset on a trip to Rwanda and Uganda to investigate what happens to the asylum seekers Israel is sending there. The one thing that remained most elusive: a future for asylum seekers pushed out of Israel.

By Oren Ziv

Meretz MKs Mossi Raz and Michal Rozin, along with Attorney Asaf Weitzen, speak to Eritrean asylum seekers in Kigali who voluntarily left Israel for Rwanda. (Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

Meretz MKs Mossi Raz and Michal Rozin, along with Attorney Asaf Weitzen, speak to Eritrean asylum seekers in Kigali who voluntarily left Israel for Rwanda. (Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

KIGALI, Rwanda — A dark cloud of ambiguity and fear has settled over Rwanda in the past few days. According to workers in international humanitarian organizations, the protests against the deportation of asylum seekers, held outside the country’s embassies in Israel and across the world, have put pressure on the government. For years, President Paul Kagame’s tyrannical regime has tried to rebrand itself in both Africa and across the world, following the genocide that took place here over 20 years ago. Accusations of abuse toward African asylum seekers aren’t helping.

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For years I have been monitoring the situation of asylum seekers in Israel: since the first ones came to Israel from Darfur in 2005, through the rising tensions in south Tel Aviv, the establishment of Holot detention center, and various protest movements. Over the past few weeks I have been closely monitoring the situation of asylum seeker’s in the country, standing with them in hours-long lines at Interior Ministry offices in and around Tel Aviv.

Most of those with whom I spoke told me they prefer prison over deportation to a “third country,” namely Rwanda or Uganda. While Israel claims it has reached an agreement with the former, the Rwandan government has repeatedly denied signing any deal to receive refugees deported from Israel. Past experience, along with various remarks made by the authorities, signal that Rwanda is the main destination.

While activists and asylum seekers protested outside embassies and consulates around the world, I headed for the airport with Meretz MKs Michal Rozin Mossi Raz, and refugee attorney Asaf Weitzen, in order to see for ourselves what is happening in those third countries, to which thousands of asylum seekers have already departed, and to which thousands will soon be deported.

“We have come to educate ourselves and make every effort possible to stop this shameful deportation, says Raz. “I am willing to go anywhere in the world to expose and stop this shameful act.”

Meretz MKs Michal Rozin (L) and Mossi Raz in Kigali, Rwanda. (Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

Meretz MKs Michal Rozin (L) and Mossi Raz in Kigali, Rwanda. (Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

As we land in Kigali, it is hard not to think about the journey of asylum seekers who “voluntarily left” Israel. Several thousand Sudanese and Eritrean asylum seekers in recent years have accepted a $3,500 incentive from Israel to leave, with the promise of legal status and safety in Rwanda or Uganda. Upon arrival, they are taken to a “hotel” in which they stay for 48 hours, after which they are pressured or forced to leave the country and once again start their journey as refugees.

The the Israeli government is adamant that Rwanda is a safe country, and is relatively well off compared to other African countries. Over the past few weeks, Israeli media outlets have reported about Rwanda’s relative prosperity and showed images of Kigali’s richest neighborhoods. The situation on the ground is far more complex. In making such claims, however, one must be careful to differentiate between how Rwanda treats its own citizens, how it treats those refugees from Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo who live in refugee camps, and asylum seekers from Israel, all of whom face entirely different experiences.

‘It is obvious the authorities are ashamed’

Hours after we land, we begin a series of meetings with various diplomats and representatives of international humanitarian organizations. Some of the meetings I attended personally, others, the delegation members relayed to me afterwards. MKs Rozin and Raz had hoped to meet with Rwandan government officials but they declined, claimed that there is nothing to discuss since there is no agreement with Israel. (The Rwandan embassy in Tel Aviv also refused to meet with them.)

While some of those whom we met suggested that the basis for an agreement between the two countries is not purely economic, but rather aimed at strengthening ties and other long-term interests, a representative of one of the humanitarian organizations had a different take. According to Israeli media reports, as part of the secret agreement between the two countries Israel has committed to pay Rwanda $5,000 for every asylum seeker sent to Kigali. Assuming Israel sends just 10,000 asylum seekers, that would amount to nearly two percent of Rwanda’s $2.58 billion annual state budget.

Kigali, Rwanda. (Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

Kigali, Rwanda. (Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

“I would have been happy to meet with government officials,” says Raz. “I did not expect it to happen, since it’s obvious the authorities are ashamed of what they are doing and are uninteresting in meeting parliamentarians like us.”

The consensus from all those we spoke to, however, was the same. Rwanda, which is trying to project a new image to the world, cannot handle the 170,000 refugees — mostly from the DRC and Burundi — and some of whom have been living in refugee camps for over 20 years.

Meanwhile, the government takes a hard line on public criticism, says one of the humanitarian representatives with whom we spoke. In one case, a senior official with whom we met practically begged us not to publish details of our meeting. “If they hear how I speak about the government, I will be out of the country tomorrow — no questions asked,” he said.

Another aid worker told us there is zero public discussion about asylum seekers being sent from Israel, and that all the information about it is coming from civil society organizations in Israel, which they view as as credible.

Much of that information has come from the Hotline for Refugees and Migrants, an Israeli NGO that recently interviewed refugees in Europe who had left Israel via Rwanda before continuing onwards. More information has been compiled by Israeli refugee activist Sigal Avivi, who spent time speaking with refugees and gathering information in Uganda and Europe. Together, they have been able to paint a fuller picture of the deportation process — and how upon arrival in Rwanda the asylum seekers receive no status or protection, and often fall prey to quasi-official smuggling and trafficking networks.

Asylum seekers protest in front of the Rwandan embassy in Herzliya. February 7, 2018. (Oren Ziv/Activestills.org.)

Asylum seekers protest in front of the Rwandan embassy in Herzliya. February 7, 2018. (Oren Ziv/Activestills.org.)

“Unfortunately, the meetings we have had until now have not put us at ease,” says Michal Rozin during a break between meetings and interviews she is giving to Israeli media outlets. “This is a topic that goes undiscussed in Rwanda. They deny the existence of an agreement between the two countries, and claim that [the deportees] won’t be granted refugee status — which would give them the right to live in refugee camps — since they are deported from Israel, a country that can grant them refugee status.”

“The aid workers do not understand why Israel is sending refugees here,” she continues “There are already 170,000 refugees in Rwanda. They ask us why we don’t take care of 40,000, and why we let them in in the first place. As Israelis who oppose the deportations, we have no good answers for them.”

‘It is better to struggle in Israel’

At noon on Thursday, we meet two asylum seekers, some of the very few who left Israel and were able to remain in Rwanda. The number of people who have remained in Rwanda after being sent here from Israel since 2015 is the single digits, we are told. The two men, who live on the outskirts of Kigali, have a message for asylum seekers still in Israel: “Do not agree to come here. Go to jail [instead],” say Musie Kalab, 32, who left Israel in 2015, and Teklesnbet, 38, who left in 2014. Both are originally from Eritrea. Neither of them have been able to find work or any sort of stability since arriving here, they say. They left Israel after the state threatened to send them to Holot, an detention facility for African asylum seekers in deep in Israel’s Negev desert.

Musie, who lived in south Tel Aviv and washed dishes for a living, still speaks Hebrew. “They brought us to Rwanda but we didn’t get anything. We are surviving from day to day,” he says. “After we landed at the airport they took us to a hotel. After three days they told me to go to Uganda. They wanted us to pay $300 to stay at the hotel. I refused to leave, but I could not stay for longer than two weeks.”

African asylum seekers wake up in the early morning of a second day of protests outside the Holot detention center, Negev desert, February 18, 2014. The protesters were calling to close the prison and to recognize the refugee rights of the African asylum seekers living in Israel. Tali Mayer/Activestills.org

African asylum seekers wake up in the early morning of a second day of protests outside the Holot detention center, Negev desert, February 18, 2014. The protesters were calling to close the prison and to recognize the refugee rights of the African asylum seekers living in Israel. Tali Mayer/Activestills.org

“We did not get status. We were not accepted to the refugee camps here,” Teklesnbet adds. “We have no work, no food. There is no reason for anyone to come here. It is better to struggle for status in Israel, even if from inside Holot.”

During our meeting, Rozin calls Musie’s brother who is still in Tel Aviv. His sister managed to make it to Europe, where she was granted refugee status. Thus, one family exemplifies how different countries deal with the same asylum request. The brother in Tel Aviv told Rozin: “I hear that it is hard for my brother in Rwanda. I am not going there, I will go to jail if necessary.”

At the end of our meeting, Weitzen takes depositions from both Musie and Teklesnbet, in order to file a petition to Israel’s High Court regarding their situation in Rwanda, which flies in the face of everything that was promised to them when they signed the deportation papers four years ago.

Weitzen, who for years worked for the Hotline for Refugees and Migrants, says that according to the legal situation in Israel, if there really is an agreement with Rwanda, Israel cannot jail people without restriction like it is planning to do. “We are demanding that Rwanda not accept the deportees.” he says.

Rwanda’s role

Over the past few weeks, the Rwandan government has denied that there is a deal to accept asylum seekers from Israel. Whether through its official Twitter account, or a letter presented to protesters outside its embassy in London, Rwanda argues that no such deal with Israel exists.

“In our view, as long as there is a threat of jailing people, as long as people are deported to Rwanda — there is a deal,” says Weitzen. “We have reason to believe that Israel would not have deported and jailed, that it is lying. And if Israel is lying, Rwanda will have to ensure that Israel stop defaming it or putting on the blame on it for the situate. One of the ways to do so is to make sure that Rwanda does not accept asylum seekers from Israel unless they themselves went to the embassy in Tel Aviv and asked to leave for Rwanda.”

“The fact that Rwanda allows this harms asylum seekers in Israel, before they even decide whether they want to leave for Rwanda. They lose their work permits and freedom.”

Toward the evening, the delegation meets with two local journalists, among the only ones who are looking into ties between Rwanda and Israel. They say that it is possible the two countries made a verbal agreement. Even if it were written, the two say, it will never see the light of day. Testimonies from other deportees show a similar pattern: after arriving in Kigali, the asylum seekers are given neither status nor documents, they remain in the hotel for several days before continuing their journey as refugees outside of Rwanda. According to the journalists, it is hard to locate the deportees during their first days in the country before they leave. “We do not know when people land or where they are being held,” they say.

Over the next few days, +972 will be reporting from Uganda, where many of the deportees sent to Rwanda currently live.

“The land where I grew up was very rich. The property was…

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“The land where I grew up was very rich. The property was empty when my father bought it, but he plowed it with cows and grew many crops there. He built it up from nothing. I have many memories there as a child. The land was next to a river. There were lots of coconut trees. The trees didn’t belong to anyone but they felt like my own. My father died when I was five years old and passed the land on to me. It was my only possession. It was my back-up plan. I worked as a janitor in the city, but I always returned to visit my mother and bring her money. It was in my twenties that I began to notice that the river was eroding the soil. Every time I returned, a bit more had fallen into the water. There was nothing I could do. We stayed until the water was five feet from our door. On the day we left, my mother told me: ‘One day you’ll realize how hard your father worked for this.’ And that’s the hardest part. The land was my only memory of my father. And now I can’t show it to my kids. I feel like it’s not just my inheritance that’s underwater, but all my father’s hard work.”

(Dhaka, Bangladesh)

‘I feel no hatred’: the radical response to an honour killing that shook India

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When Ankrit, a Hindu, was murdered by a Muslim couple for dating their daughter, his father chose love over anger

It was Thursday last week when the unexpected visitors climbed the stairs to Yashpal Saxena’s one room home in west Delhi.

Saxena offered the couple tea but they declined. After 45 minutes, they left and Saxena and his wife Kamlesh began preparing dinner for their son Ankit, 23, who was expected home any moment. But he never came. At 8pm, screams erupted outside their Raghubir Nagar home.

Continue reading…

The Truth Behind the Russian Embassy to the Netherlands’ “Russia’s Strength is in Truth” Branding Proposal

On February 9 2018 the Russian Embassy to the Netherlands tweeted their suggestion for a brand “describing Russia’s position in world affairs”:

It’s unclear if this was an attempt as humour, as in world affairs it would be fair to say Russia’s greatest weakness is in truth, as the work of Bellingcat and others has repeatedly caught Russia lying about world affairs. The Russian Embassy of the Netherlands’ idea is particularly egregious in light of the Russian government’s repeated lies over the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 in Ukraine on July 17 2014, resulting in the deaths of 193 Dutch citizens.

MH17

A few days after MH17 was shot down, on July 21 2014, the Russian Ministry of Defence gave a press conference where it made various claims and allegations, supported by evidence, that indicated the guilt of the Ukrainian military in the downing of MH17.

The Russian MoD claimed that a video showing a Buk missile launcher transported on the rear of a truck which the Ukrainian Ministry of Interior had posted online, claiming it showed the Buk in separatist control Luhansk on July 18 2014, was in fact filmed elsewhere:

“This video was made in the town of Krasnoarmeisk, as evidenced by the billboard you see in the background, advertising a car dealership at 34 Dnepropetrovsk Street. Krasnoarmeysk has been controlled by the Ukrainian military since May 11”

To support their claim they included a graphic showing the billboard in the video with a line of text highlighted with the address of the car dealership. Unfortunately for the Russians, this lie was easily exposed, with the exact location of the billboard confirmed through geolocation and locals visiting the sign and taking photographs of the billboard, which revealed the line of text Russia claimed read “34 Dnepropetrovsk Street” actually said something completely different:

Top – Image from the Russian MoD presentation, Bottom – Photograph taken by a Luhansk local showing the actual caption on the sign

The Russian Ministry of Defence also presented satellite imagery, claiming to show various locations on and before the date of the incident. Imagery presented by the Russian Ministry of Defence of a Ukrainian air base, supposedly from July 14 and July 17, was proven by Bellingcat to have been captured weeks earlier. Key features visible in Digital Globe imagery captured on July 17 2014 showed significant differences from the Russian Ministry of Defence imagery they claimed was from the same period, for example an area of trees visible in the Russian MoD imagery that had been removed by July 2014:

Left – Imagery from July 17 2014 from Digital Globe, Right – Imagery from July 14 2014

The Russian MoD satellite imagery had also been edited, as research by Bellingcat and, later, Catherine Dill, Jeffrey Lewis, Melissa Hanham and David Schmerler from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey published on the Arms Control Wonk website showed. The Arms Control Wonk team used Tungstène, a suite of forensic software tools, to examine the images, and came to the conclusion that the images had been “so heavily manipulated that it lacks any credibility as evidence”. Just a few days after MH17 had been shot down killing 298 people the Russian MoD was already presenting fake satellite images in an attempt to shift blame to another country.

The Russian MoD also made claims based on radar imagery, stating MH17 had changed course significantly, radar data showed an aircraft close to MH17 just after it was shot down, and radar data showed an aircraft approaching MH17 before it was shot down:

“Russian system of air control detected the Ukrainian Air Force aircraft, purposed Su-25, moving upwards toward to the Malaysian Boeing-777. The distance between aircrafts was 3-5 kilometers.”

After the press conference the Russian MoD failed to produce the radar data for the Dutch Safety Board (DSB) investigation and criminal investigation by the Joint Investigation Team (JIT), claiming they no longer had a copy of the data. In a bizarre turn of events, two years later, days before the JIT gave a September 28 2016 press conference explaining their findings so far, the Russians claimed to have rediscovered this missing radar data, and presented it on September 26, in an obvious attempt to undermine the JIT’s September 28 press conference.

At this press conference they presented conclusions that directly contradicted their earlier claims. MH17 didn’t drastically change course, there was no aircraft approaching MH17, in fact there was no object anywhere near MH17, and now the object that appeared on the radar data after MH17 was shot down was part of the aircraft picked up on radar as it broke away. This was all based on exactly the same data they presented on July 21 2014, but now they made entirely different conclusions, a clear indication that they were lying in at least one of those press conferences.

Ukraine

The MH17 case led to an increased interest in the conflict in Ukraine, and the open source material being produced from the conflict. One question that came under close scrutiny was the claim by Russia that the allegations they were providing material support to the separatists, and even sending over Russian soldiers and equipment, were false. In the case of MH17 it was possible to track the Buk missile launcher used in the attack back to Russia’s 53rd air defence bridge in Kursk, but this was just one example of Russian equipment being sent to Ukraine exposed by open source investigation. Russian blogger Askai707 wrote a number of in-depth investigations clearly demonstrating the presence of Russian vehicles and soldiers in Ukraine. In Russia’s 6th Tank Brigade: The Dead, the Captured, and the Destroyed Tanks (part 1, and part 2) Askai707 identified multiple Russian soldiers (and their equipment) captured and killed in fighting in Ukraine, just one of the articles where he demonstrated clear evidence of Russian soldiers, their vehicles, and their equipment being sent to Ukraine:

Russian tank crew captured by Ukrainian government forces in the summer of 2014

The same Russian tank crew with their colleagues before travelling to Ukraine

The VICE News documentary, Selfie Soldiers, based partly on an investigation in the Atlantic Council’s Hiding in Plain Sight report, showed Simon Ostrovsky tracking a Russian soldier’s movement from Russia to Ukraine, and back again, using the solider’s own social media posts, making one of the strongest cases possible that a serving Russian soldier had been sent to Ukraine to fight:

Russia’s involvement in the conflict was not only limited to sending over Russian equipment and troops to fight in Ukraine. Bellingcat’s investigation into over 100 crater sites in Ukraine indicated the attacks originated not from separatists positions inside Ukraine, but from artillery positions inside Russia, with thousands of munitions fired from Russia into Ukraine during the summer of 2014:

Syria

The conflict in Ukraine is not the only conflict Russia has been caught lying about repeatedly. During the first days of Russia’s air campaign in Syria the Russian MoD posted videos online claiming to show ISIS targets being destroyed in airstrikes. By geolocating the videos, and comparing those locations to the Russian MoD’s own maps, it was possible to establish in the vast majority of cases the Russian MoD was lying about the videos being filmed in ISIS territory. Bellingcat’s investigation concluded:

  • Only nine of the 60 videos published by the Russian MoD at the time of publication could not be geolocated and verified
  • In all cases except one where the claimed location was the actual location, ISIS presence in that area was not identified
  • In the cases where the claimed location mismatched the actual location, no ISIS presence exists in the area that was targeted

These conclusions are based purely on the Russian MoD’s own videos, and their own map of who controlled what in Syria at the time of bombing. The Russian MoD response was to at first change the language used to describe to target to more generic terms like “fighter” or “terrorist” rather than naming a specific group, then to move from describing locations as in or near to towns and cities, to the governorate of Syria the attack took place in.

Misidentifying the group being bombed was not the only problem with Russia’s claims. In some examples, locations described as a specific type of structure or building turned out to be something quite different. In December 2015 the Russian MoD published the following video on their YouTube, described as the bombing of an oil refinery:

In fact, the location bombed was Al-Khafsa water treatment facility, not an oil refinery as claimed:

The left image is a still from the footage released by the Russian Ministry of Defence; the image on the right is Microsoft satellite imagery showing the same location. Coordinates: 36°10’37″N 38°2’30″E

As Russia’s bombing of Syria continued, allegations surfaced of hospitals, mosques, and schools being bombed by Russia. In response to some of these allegations, the Russian MoD held press conferences where they presented evidence they claimed showed the alleged attacks did not occur. However, open source analysis of these claims revealed the truth, that the Russian MoD was presenting evidence that was deliberately misleading.

On October 1st 2015 reports of Russian airstrikes hitting a mosque in the town of Jisr al-Shughur in Idlib began appearing online. These allegations were accompanied by videos and photos showing the mosque bombed, but the Russian MoD claimed in an October 30th press conference that these allegations were untrue.

As part of their presentation, they displayed aerial imagery of the town, showing a mosque on the west side of town, which showed no apparent damage. Evidence, they claimed, that the attack did not occur:

There was one major problem with the Russian MoD claim; this was not the mosque locals claimed had been bombed and featured in footage published online. The Russian MoD has simply lied about which mosque was bombed, and used an image of this different mosque as evidence that a completely different mosque wasn’t bombed.

In another incident, Russia was accused of bombing a hospital in the town of Sarmin, and in this case the moment the bomb struck was caught on camera by a member of the White Helmets:

Again, Russia denied responsibility, and presented aerial imagery that showed the area undamaged:

RT covered the Russian response, which included their own geolocation of the attack site:

Unlike the mosque bombing, Russia was in fact telling the truth about the location, but this time they were telling another lie. A Bellingcat investigation established that damage visible in footage from the aftermath of the attack was not visible on the Russian aerial imagery. Structures, walls, and poles that were completely destroyed in footage from the aftermath of the attack were shown still standing in the Russian MoD imagery, clear evidence the Russian MoD was using aerial imagery from before the attack as evidence the attack didn’t occur at all:

Structures destroyed in the bombing are undamaged in the Russian MoD aerial imagery they claim was captured after the attack

This wasn’t the only time the Russian MoD lied about a hospital bombing. Between September 28 2016 to October 3 2016 M10 hospital was damaged in three air attacks, with the October 3 bombing causing a significant amount of damage to the main hospital building. The moment of the October 3 2016 bombing was captured on CCTV cameras, clearly showing the moment of impact:

The impact side of the bombing showed a impact massive crater on the east side of the main hospital building:

Crater on the east side of M10 hospital’s main building

The Russian MoD yet again gave another press conference where they claimed their imagery proved nothing had happened:

“No changes to the facility can be observed on another image taken on October 11, or after the alleged air strike. This fact proves that all accusations of indiscriminate strikes voiced by some alleged eyewitnesses turn out to be mere fakes.”

Aside from the wealth of evidence showing the attacks took place, there are in fact differences in the imagery provided by the Russian MoD:

Red – A partly collapsed roof, Green – A collapse roof, Yellow – Damage to the road from the bombing

The damage is more clearly visible on Google Earth satellite imagery of the location taken before and after the bombings occurred:

Unlike in previous examples where the Russian MoD lied about the location or date, this time they were lying about what the viewers own eyes could see.

Aside from lying about bombing mosques and hospitals, the Russian MoD also lied about the type of munitions it was using in Syria. Following accusations of cluster munition use from various NGOs, Igor Konashenkov, a spokesman for the Russian military put out a statement deny the allegations, stating that  “Russian aviation does not use them” and “there are no such weapons at the Russian air base in Syria”.

Thanks to Russian media organisations, this was proven to be totally untrue in an investigation by the Conflict Intelligence Team. At the time, the Russian MoD had invited various media organisations to their airbase in Syria, and by carefully examining these images it was possible to identify not only cluster bombs at Russia’s airbase in Syria, but Russian aircraft armed with cluster bombs.

The Conflict Intelligence Team discovered the deception of the Russian government can even be exposed at the very highest level. When Vladimir Putin was being interviewed by Oliver Stone Putin showed Oliver Stone footage he claimed showed Russian forces attacking ISIS in Syria. CITeam discovered was the footage was in fact US footage from Afghanistan:

Chemical Weapons

Before Russia was bombing Syria and fighting a war in Ukraine, and lying about it, the Russian government was already getting caught lying about another subject, the use of the chemical weapons by the Syrian government, a practice it continued once it started bombing Syria.

Following the August 21st 2013 Sarin attacks in Damascus, the initial Russian reaction was to denounce the “biased regional media’s….aggressive information attack, laying all the responsibility on the government”, with Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Aleksandr Lukashevich claiming a “homemade rocket with a poisonous substance that has not been identified yet – one similar to the rocket used by terrorists on March 19 in Khan al-Assal – was fired early on August 21 [at Damascus suburbs] from a position occupied by the insurgents.”  Already there was an issue with this simple claim. Two types of rocket had been used on August 21, documented both in open sources, and by the United Nations Mission to Investigate Allegations of the Use of Chemical Weapons in the Syrian Arab Republic investigation into the August 21 attacks. One type of rocket used, the Volcano rocket used by government forces, could have passed for a homemade munition, but the second type, an M14 140mm artillery rocket, was a munition built by the Soviet Union, and could be in no way described as homemade.

On August 23rd, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Aleksandr Lukashevich made a new claim

More new evidence is starting to emerge that this criminal act was clearly provocative.  On the internet, in particular, reports are circulating that news of the incident carrying accusations against government troops was published several hours before the so-called attack. So, this was a pre-planned action.

This appears to have referred to multiple reports at the time that some of the videos supposedly posted on August 21 appeared with a date of August 20, as reported by a number of sites, with those claims being republished by sites such as Russia Today, and Voice of Russia. Investigations by Storyful and others brought to attention that fact that the date displayed on YouTube videos from Syria are in fact the local time where the servers are located, in this case California, which is several hours behind Syria. This results in videos uploaded in the early morning in Syria being displayed with a date of the previous day. Lukashevich’s claim was merely repeating an incorrect internet rumour that could be easily debunked.
Following that statement Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, held a press conference, and referenced the now discredited claims about YouTube upload times; “There is information that videos were posted on the internet hours before the purported attack, and other reasons to doubt the rebel narrative.” It was clear, even as he spoke those words, that they were nothing more than fodder for conspiracy theorists.
Over the next months, the Russian government gave various versions of events on August 21, seemingly based on dubious news articles, claims by fringe organisations, and no actual intelligence of their own, many of which contradicted each other.
When it came to the April 4th 2017 Khan Sheikhoun attack, Russia kept things some what simpler. On April 5th 2017 Sputnik quoted Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov as stating that Syrian aircraft conducted an airstrike around “11.30 to 12.30, local time, [8.30 to 9.30 GMT]” on a chemical weapons warehouse. According to Sputnik, Konashenkov stated the target was “in the eastern outskirts of Khan Shaykhun on a large warehouse of ammunition of terrorists and the mass of military equipment.”In addition, Sputnik reported that:

“Konashenkov said that from this warehouse, chemical weapons’ ammunition was delivered to Iraq by militants.

Konashenkov added that there were workshops for manufacturing bombs, stuffed with poisonous substances, on the territory of this warehouse. He noted that these munitions with toxic substances were also used by militants in Syria’s Aleppo.”

The first problem with this claim is the initial reports of the chemical attack, including images of the victims and footage of the bombing raid that occurred during the chemical attack, appeared online 3 hours before the time the Russian MoD gave for the warehouse bombing. The second problem was the Russian MoD didn’t provide a location of this warehouse, and no such structure was reported as bombed at any point. Zero evidence existed for a chemical weapons warehouse being bombed, and the OPCW-UN Joint Investigative Mechanism report on the attack said the location “appears to be a building used by the Syrian Civil Defence as a medical point in the eastern outskirts of Khan Shaykhun,” adding “Apart from the fact that victims of the sarin incident earlier that morning had been treated there, the Mechanism did not link that location to the release of sarin.”

Russia’s Response

Even in the Russian government’s response to the work of Bellingcat that exposed their lies, they ended up telling yet another lie, and then compounded that by telling another lie. On April 6th 2016 Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova made the following statement about Bellingcat:

Bellingcat as an instrument to divert attention from investigating the tragedy of the Malaysian Boeing over Ukraine

We took note of an interview with Bellingcat representatives for the BBC in which they sarcastically spoke about some “trolling” on the part of the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Ministry of Russia, for allegedly attacking them.

I would simply like to recall that we do not attack anyone, but rather, give our unbiased assessment of the work of both this group and those who use its materials as reliable information.

We understand the purpose of this group’s activities. Acting jointly with the current Ukrainian authorities, they continue to use all possible “fakes,” to create quasi-evidence to blame Russia. Why do we take this position and on what is it based? Even now the commission (investigating the circumstances of the Boeing tragedy over the territory of Ukraine) prefers to ignore Russia’s reasoning, which is corroborated by facts and evidence, in particular by tests and experiments. The commission ignores it to the extent that it makes no reply to this reasoning, while at the same time passing off these “fakes” for the hundredth time as proof or integrated evidence, even when this information has been debunked, and not only by Russia.

At present, we have information,that leads us to believe that loyal and handy witnesses in this case are being selected and presumably trained. This begs the question: why is all this being done? The aim is once again to give the global community fabricated proof of Russia’s aggression. This seems blasphemous in this case, because people died there and their families want to know the truth. One may endlessly combine all these invented stories and collect evidence allegedly found on social media sites and at the same time ignore the results of experiments, including those provided by Russia. All this can be done only if you neglect to consider one thing: this case is not just an information campaign, it involves human lives, the destinies of the victims’ families, who definitely want to know the truth.

Bellingcat contacted the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, asking for evidence to support the claim “Acting jointly with the current Ukrainian authorities, they continue to use all possible “fakes,” to create quasi-evidence to blame Russia”, as this claim was completely untrue.

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs eventually addressed our request and sent a document with what it claimed was evidence to support its case:

Dear Mr. Higgins,

Your persistence would find a better use if you did put some effort to performing your self-proclaimed Internet sleuth role. We, on our part, would like to note that the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation has already provided perfectly detailed and clear examples of your falsifications. While we completely agree with the points made by our colleagues, we would like to add a few more facts.

It is obvious for anyone that your priority is creating an impression among the public that Russian troops were present at an alleged launch site of the missile that hit the Malaysian plane on July 17, 2014 in the skies over Ukraine. However, you have failed to confirm this. As of today, no one has provided actual proof of Russian Armed Forces’ presence in Ukraine. This is simply impossible because there are no Russian troops there, and there never were. The social network data as well as different Internet posts that you use cannot, under any circumstances, be taken as actual proof of Russia’s involvement in the conflict in Ukraine.

Now let’s see the specific examples.

The document then went on to describe some of the ways the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs believed Bellingcat producing fakes (although failed to address the claims Bellingcat was working with “the current Ukrainian authorities”). The claims were filled with errors and could be clearly shown to be incorrect, but as the Bellingcat team reviewed the document it became clear the entire document, aside from the opening paragraphs, had been plagiarised from two LiveJournal blog posts from the user “albert-lex.” The first of these blog posts, “Belling the Cat,” is from October 2015, and the second, “Anti-Russian experts on NATO’s Hook,” is from March 2016. Paragraphs and sentences had been copied and restructured, but some cases were more blatant. For example:

MFA Letter: В качестве доказательств – десятки фотографий из социальных сетей, на которых изображены какие-то солдаты с размытыми лицами, боевая техника с плохо читаемыми бортовыми номерами, к тому же непонятно где находящаяся.

Translation – The proof presented is dozens of photos taken from social networks showing some soldiers with blurry faces and military vehicles with poorly visible side numbers in unknown locations.

Albert-LexВ качестве доказательств – десятки фотографий из социальных сетей, на которых изображены какие-то солдаты с размытыми лицами, боевой техники с плохо читаемыми бортовыми номерами, к тому же непонятно где находящейся.

The plagiarism could not be more obvious here. The only difference between the two texts is that the MFA letter used an en dash (double-hyphen turned into a longer dash in MS Word), while the Albet-Lex post only used a single hyphen.

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs made no reference to these blog posts, making this a clear case of plagiarism, were “their” evidence was actually the incorrect claims of a Russian blogger.

Based on Russia’s past relationship with the truth the Russian Embassy to the Netherlands’ suggestion “Russia’s Strength is in Truth” is probably the least appropriate branding they could have come up with, or a very dark joke.

The post The Truth Behind the Russian Embassy to the Netherlands’ “Russia’s Strength is in Truth” Branding Proposal appeared first on bellingcat.