28 Mar 08 | News and features
Dutch MP Geert Wilders has posted his controversial film Fitna on the Internet. The film, a polemic against the ‘Islamicisation’ of Europe made up of clips of bombings and speeches from imams and politicians, has been the subject of huge controversy in the Netherlands, where the government has been at pains to distance itself from Wilders’s stance.
Watch Fitna here
(Warning: the film contains graphic violent footage).
28 Jun 24 | Europe and Central Asia, European Union, News and features
While the outcome of the 2024 election is yet to be finalised, results at the time of writing show that Eurosceptic conservatives are on course to win an extra 14 seats (taking them to 83), while right-wing nationalists will gain nine seats (to 58). Overall, the right, including centre-right politicians of the European People’s Party grouping, has done well, largely at the expense of the liberal and green party groupings. With just five nations out of 27, including Italy and Estonia, remaining to publish their final results, the overall picture is unlikely to change dramatically.
The move to the far right is evident across Europe. France, which elects 81 members to the European Parliament (EP), was perhaps where this was most evident. Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party is projected to receive around 31-32% of the vote, against President Macron’s centrist party, which is estimated to reach around 15% of the vote. Macron was so concerned about his party’s poor showing that he has called an election in the country. Belgium’s prime minister also handed in his resignation after the nationalist New Flemish Alliance emerged as the big winner after regional, national and European Parliament elections were held in the country on Super Sunday.
In Germany, Eurosceptic parties are projected to secure over 16% of the EP vote. The AfD tripled its support from voters under 24 from 5% in 2019 to 16% and gains six seats to reach 15. The Greens lost nine seats from 21 last time around. Austria’s far-right Freedom Party gained nearly 26% of the vote, gaining three seats, while in the Netherlands, Geert Wilders’s anti-immigration Party for Freedom gained six seats with 17% of the vote. A similar story played out in Poland, Spain, Greece, Bulgaria and Croatia.
But what is driving Europe’s veer to the right?
There is some evidence that the success of the far right comes from millennial and Gen Z voters shifting towards these parties. A third of French voters under 34 and 22% of young German voters favour their country’s far right, while in the Netherlands, the Party for Freedom has become the largest party among under-34s.
Young Europeans, mainly those aged 18-29, overwhelmingly rely on social media for daily news consumption. In Italy and Denmark, nearly three-quarters of young adults use social media for news daily (74% and 75%). A recent German youth study found that 57% of youth prefer social media for news and political updates.
There is growing concern that external actors, particularly from Russia, may have influenced the elections.
Media reports reveal that EU leaders were so concerned about foreign interference in the elections that they set up rapid alert teams to manage any serious incidents. Officials told the Guardian that disinformation has reached “tsunami levels.”
The evidence points to Russia.
Last December, France’s VIGINUM group, which is tasked with protecting France and its interests against foreign digital interference, published a report revealing a network of nearly 200 websites with addresses of the form pravda-xx.com or xx.news-pravda.com, where xx is the country identifier.
The sites, which generate little new content themselves, instead amplify existing pro-Russian content from state sources and social media, including posts from military blogger Mikhail Zvinchuk. Pro-Russian content relating to the Ukraine war is a particular favourite.
Thirty-four fact-checking organisations in Europe, showed that the Pravda network had spread to at least 19 EU countries. Fact-checking organisation Greece Fact Check, in cooperation with Pagella Politica and Facta news, has since noticed that the Pravda network has been attempting to convey large amounts of disinformation and pro-Russia propaganda to sway EU public opinion.
The organisation said that “minor pro-Russian politicians who run for the elections are quoted by state media such as Ria and then further amplified by the Pravda network, in what seems an attempt to magnify their relevance”.
A report by EDMO on EU-related disinformation ahead of the elections found that it was at its highest ever level in May 2024. Ministers for European affairs from France, Germany, and Poland cautioned about efforts to manipulate information and mislead voters. Across the EU, authorities observed a resurgence in coordinated operations spreading anti-EU and Ukraine narratives through fake news websites and on social media platforms Facebook and X.
Among the false stories that emerged and covered were reports that EU President Ursula Von der Leyen had links to Nazism and had been arrested in the European Parliament.
In Germany, there were stories circulating that the country’s vote was being manipulated, ballot papers with holes or corners cut were invalid and that anyone voting for the far-right party AfD would follow stricter rules. Other stories attempted to trick voters into multiple voting or signing their ballot papers, practices that would invalidate their votes.
The report also noted that around 4% of such disinformation articles have been created using AI tools.
The tsunami of disinformation looks unlikely to fade away any time soon. The Guardian says that the EU’s rapid alert teams have been asked to continue their work for weeks after the election.
A senior official told the paper, “The expectation is that it is around election day that we will see this interruption of narratives questioning the legitimacy of the European elections, and in the weeks around it.”
09 Jul 21 | Media Freedom, Netherlands, News and features
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”117066″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]Dutch crime journalist Peter R de Vries is fighting for his life in a hospital in Amsterdam, after he was shot in the head on Tuesday evening. He had just left the studio of a TV show to which he is a regular contributor. Two suspects have been arrested.
De Vries is one of the best-known journalists in the Netherlands and is recognised for his deep commitment to the victims of the crimes he investigates. Tenacious like a pitbull, he pursues their stories to deliver justice.
He doesn’t shy away from crossing the boundaries of journalism either: he recently started a crowdfunding campaign to raise one million euros to be used as tip money to help solve a cold case of a missing student dating back to 1983.
The attempt on his life is likely to be connected to another step he took away from journalism: he became the confidant of Nabil B., a Crown witness in a trial against an exceptionally violent drugs gang. Although police haven’t commented on the attempted murder yet, few doubt that this is the context in which it needs to be placed.
In an interview with Index on Censorship, De Vries’ colleague Gerlof Leistra, a crime reporter for weekly EW Magazine for more than 30 years, bluntly stated: “This murder attempt is not an attack on press freedom and is not related to journalism.”
Some may question this view; investigative journalists have often pushed at the boundaries in order to secure the story.
Leistra said he has always respected De Vries as a colleague, and pointed out that De Vries never focuses on organised crime in his journalistic investigations. Leistra said: “With his stories and book about the Heineken abduction and murder in 1983 as an exception, he focused on cold cases, deceit, scams. He’s a fantastic man, who could get genuinely wound up about an unjust parking ticket for an old lady. He crossed a journalistic line though when he became Nabil B.’s confidant.”
To be accepted as such by the authorities and get access to his client, De Vries became an employee of the lawyer’s office that represented the Crown witness. It was a clear risk.
The so-called Marengo trial revolves around one of the most violent organised crime organisations ever uncovered in the Netherlands. On trial are the gang’s leader Ridouan Taghi and more than a dozen of his accomplices.
The pursuit of the gang has already led to the murder of others connected with the case. In 2018, Nabil B.’s brother was murdered by Taghi’s men. A year later, Derk Wiersum, Nabil B.’s lawyer, was also murdered. Despite the risk, De Vries refused personal protection.
In a recent interview with magazine Vrij Nederland, De Vries said: “I’m not a scared person, but Nabil’s brother and his previous lawyer were murdered so you don’t have to be hysterical to think something may happen. That’s part of the job. A crime reporter who thinks ‘it’s all getting a bit too intense now’ when the going gets tough, should instead work for Libelle,” referring to a weekly women’s magazine.
Crime journalist Leistra said that the murder attempt is an attack on the rechtsstaat, the system of legal institutions that upholds and protects the state of law. Thomas Bruning, general secretary of the Dutch Journalists Union (NVJ) agrees in part. He told Index on Censorship: “We have to nuance the image of this murder attempt being about press freedom only. Nevertheless, for his colleagues, this is an attack on one of them, and it creates a chilling climate.”
This climate has become colder in the last couple of years. Research by the NVJ has shown that more journalists in the Netherlands are getting targeted verbally or physically for their work. National broadcaster NOS last year decided not to use vans with its logo any more because it is increasingly triggering agression.
On Twitter, Dutch Member of Parliament Geert Wilders recently called journalists ‘scum’.
Bruning said: “Criminals aren’t triggered by that of course, but this all complicates the role of journalists in society. There have been threats against journalists, and now one such threat was put into practice.”
This is also what Bruning discussed with the authorities this week during a meeting with Justice Minister Ferd Grapperhaus.
He said: “It’s positive that two suspects have been arrested. The authorities do take this seriously so I don’t think we can draw a parallel with murders of journalists elesewhere in Europe.”
Bruning was referring to the murders of Daphne Caruana Galizia in Malta in 2017 and Ján Kuciak in Slovakia in 2018, which laid bare corruption within the state.
Nevertheless, Bruning sees a development to which he drew Grapperhaus’s attention. He said: “Before, criminals killed each other, then they murdered a lawyer, now an attempted murder of a journalist for, most likely, his role in a trial. Who knows, maybe the next target is a journalist who only reports about crime. It’s a slippery slope.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
