Disinfo: European Commission Vice-President blusters about genocide on Europeans

Summary

The European Commission Vice-President rants about genocide on Europeans. He said: “Monocultural states have to disappear, mass immigration of Muslim men is a means to an end.” No country should escape the inevitable process of inter-racial mixture. Instead, immigrants should be encouraged to “reach even the remotest places on the planet to ensure that no more homogeneous societies remain anywhere.

Disproof

Frans Timmermanns did not say this. The wrong quote appeared first in May 2016 at the German Website Frankfurter Erklaerung, where the article is offline and only available in Web-Archive. The article referred to a speech of Timmermanns at the EU Fundamental Rights Colloquium. On the website of the European Commission you can find the speech of 1 October 2015 at the opening of the colloquium in written form. The story is currently doing the rounds again in social media. Within the wrong quote, Timmermans had called on the members of the EU Parliament to contribute more to the disappearance of monocultural states. But within the actual speech there is no evidence for this claim. The quotation is purely fictional. Timmermans warned that the abandonment of values would cause our society to perish. He did not speak of "erasing" or "disappearing". The original quote in full length: "Diversity is now in some parts of Europe seen as a threat. Diversity comes with challenges, but diversity is humanity's destiny. There is not going to be, even in the remotest places of this planet, a nation that will not see diversity in its future. That's where humanity is heading and those politicians trying to sell to their electorates a society that is exclusively composed of people from one culture are trying to portray a future based on the past that never existed. Therefore that future will never be. Europe will be diverse like all other parts of the world will be diverse. The only question is, how do we deal with that diversity. And my answer to that is: by ensuring that our values determine how we deal with diversity and not giving up our values to refuse diversity. That will bring us down as a society. If we don't get this right, I truly believe, Europe will not remain the Europe we've built. Europe will not remain the place of peace and freedom for very long." The case was debunked by dpa’s Presseportal on 25th April 2019. The disproof was also picked up by the German fact-checking site CORRECTIV who published it here.

publication/media

  • Reported in: Issue 150
  • DATE OF PUBLICATION: 19/05/2019
  • Outlet language(s) German
  • Keywords: migration, European Parliament, European Union
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Disinfo: Alyaksandr Lukashenka skipped the Eastern Partnership summit in Brussels because the West could organise his killing

Neither pro-West experts nor the Belarusian Foreign Minister, Uladzimir Makey, know why Alyaksandr Lukashenka did not accept the EU’s invitation to attend the Eastern Partnership (EaP) summit in Brussels to mark its 10th anniversary. Attending the summit meant that Lukashenka would have to meet and hug the failed robber of the Ukrainian people, Petro Poroshenko, hence, aggravating Belarus-Ukraine relations. Alyaksandr Lukashenka is well aware that such anniversaries and visits have no value. Furthermore, he rightly does not trust the West’s bureaucracy which, with assistance from Belarusian puppets can organise a vile provocation including the physical elimination of a politician disliked by all.

Disproof

This message is a conspiracy consistent with extreme modification of recurring pro-Kremlin narrative about the West's attempts to destabilise Belarus and to organise a colour revolution in the country. Belarusian FM Uladzimir Makey explained Alexander Lukashenko's decision to skip the summit through an insufficient level of Belarus-EU cooperation. See another extreme modification of this narrative in an earlier disinformation case alleging that the Belarusian opposition, civic activists and independent journalists make kill lists for Western security bodies.

Disinfo: OPCW leaked report contradicts official conclusions about Douma attack

A report prepared by engineers of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) contradicts the final report of this same UN institution about the events in the Syrian city of Douma (Eastern Ghouta) in April 2018, and raise questions about the existence of political pressure from the US, UK and France. According to the document, “there is a higher probability” that two gas cylinders found in Douma “were manually placed at those to locations rather than being delivered from an aircraft”, which means that Syrian rebels could perfectly have planted them there. “The dimensions, characteristics and appearance of the cylinders and the surrounding scene of the incidents, were inconsistent with what would have been expected in the case of either cylinder been delivered from an aircraft”, the engineers concluded.

Disproof

Recurring disinformation narratives deflecting blame for chemical attacks from the Assad regime; painting the White Helmets as terrorists; and aiming to discredit the OPCW. The "never-before-seen-report" appears to be an engineering assessment carried out by one individual who, contrary to Sputnik's false claim, was never a member of the Fact-Finding Mission and is not currently employed by the organization. The individual, however, was affiliated with the OPCW as an engineer and apparently have access to materials gathered in the course of the Douma FFM, and based his/her conclusions on the same evidence pool. An OPCW press statement confirms that "all information was taken into account, deliberated, and weighed when formulating the final report regarding the incident in Douma." The OPCW Technical Secretariat is conducting an internal investigation about the unauthorised release of the document in question. Regardless of the leaked document's authenticity, its conclusion that the cylinders could not have been dropped from helicopters: a) has been addressed in the actual OPCW report on Douma (Annex 6, pp. 55-56); b) does not support the claim that the incident was staged "and designed to frame the Syrian government." The White Helmets have not once been "busted" staging anything, see our debunking on the subject for more details.

Disinfo: In contrast to Russia, western Europe is abandoning Christian roots

Western Europe is moving away from its Christian roots. The western European society gets dominated by materialism and pursuit of money. Western Europeans are disappointed with the Christian church primarily because of the way of life of local priests, which is full of materialism and debauchery. European culture has abandoned Christianity, and is getting absorbed by Muslim migrants. In contrast, the Russian Orthodox Church has preserved the original Christian spirit. Eastern Slavs are more likely to sacrifice themselves and their lives for the others.

Disproof

Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative on the Islamisation of Europe, in line with a similar narrative on the morally decaying West. Despite the dropping levels of religious practice in Europe, the majority of western Europeans still identify themselves as Christians, a 2018 survey by the Pew Research Center shows. According to the same survey, 31% of western Europeans who identify themselves as Christians attend religious services at least monthly. At the same time one of the 2018 polls in Russia concluded that 17% of Russians who identify themselves as Orthodox Christians attend church at least monthly. See a collection of earlier disinformation cases concerning the Orthodox church.