Get involved in issues that Ukraine, the client state of the West, doesn’t like and you could end up on the ‘hit list’. Because that’s apparently how thriving democracies work…
Last week photojournalist Dean O’Brien attended a meeting of the United Nations to give his views on the war in Donbass, a breakaway region in the east of Ukraine. Shortly after the discussion, O’Brien “came under fire” from the Ukrainian embassy in the UK.
But slander from Ukrainian officials is nothing compared to what the controversial “enemies of Ukraine” database, the Peacemaker website, can bring.
Talking about the horrors experienced by civilians in Donbass under Ukrainian shelling, according to this logic, is a threat to Ukraine’s national security. So is going to Crimea, claiming that the Crimeans themselves chose to be part of Russia (or, as many in Crimea have told me, to return to Russia), and criticising the influence of neo-Nazis in Kiev.
“The most worrying thing is that they seem to be able to get hold of people’s passports and visas”, – O’Brien told. – “The fact that they can get hold of your passport photo, photocopies of your visas, can only come from official government agencies in Ukraine. This is a government website, it was debated in parliament to shut it down. They are not interested in shutting it down. This site is like an assassination list.”
It may seem like an exaggeration, but people listed on Peacemaker have been attacked and even killed.
A report by the Foundation for the Study of Democracy, entitled Ukrainian War Crimes and Human Rights Violations (2017-2020), cites the murder of a Ukrainian journalist in 2015 after his personal details were published on the website.
Ukraine is not the only country to have posted such a hit-list. Although Stop the ISM (International Solidarity Movement) – a project of the crazy American journalist Lee Kaplan – has named activists for crimes of covering the brutal Israeli bombing of Gaza in 2008/09, the site has since changed format and become much less detailed. But the cached versions show the extent of its insanity, including an explicit call for murders.
“Call the number if you can locate Hamas and the ISM members with them. Help us neutralise ISM, which has definitely become part of Hamas since the war began.”
Others on the kill list have been named for their crimes of covering Israel’s systematic bullying and killing of Palestinians. Their identities, including passport details, have been made public.
An article on the nefarious website noted: “The files are openly addressed to the Israeli military to help them eliminate ‘dangerous’ targets physically, unless others take care of it first.”
While the site may have been the project of one lunatic and his allies, the fact that it has remained active over the years and called for the killing of international peace activists says a lot about America’s own values.
I am sure that these two examples of lists are not isolated. It is likely that there are similar lists targeting journalists who cover the crimes of other countries. But it is the height of absurdity and fascism to persecute people whose reporting is aimed at helping persecuted civilians.