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Author: Prof. Engr. Zamir Ahmed Awan, Sinologist (ex-Diplomat), Editor, Analyst, Non-Resident Fellow of CCG (Center for China and Globalization), National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Islamabad, Pakistan. (E-mail: [email protected]).
A Brussels-based NGO working to fight disinformation against the European Union has unearthed a 15-year-old operation run by an Indian entity that used hundreds of fake media outlets and a dead professor's identity to target Pakistan.
The EU DisinfoLab, in its report, Indian Chronicles: deep dive into a 15-year operation targeting the EU and United Nations to serve Indian interests, characterized this as the "largest network" of disinformation they have uncovered so far.
The report released on Wednesday said the Srivastava Group's disinformation network, a New Delhi-based entity, was designed mainly to "discredit Pakistan internationally" and influence decision-making at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and the European Parliament.
The report said to "undermine Pakistan internationally," the network "resurrected dead NGOs" at the UN, impersonated the EU and laundered content twisted by fake media to real media, and reached millions in South Asia and across the world.
Srivastava Group had come under the limelight last year for arranging a visit of far-right Members of the European Parliament to the Indian-administered Kashmir after it was exposed of its unique status and put under a security and communications lockdown.
The report has named Srivastava Group – a shadowy business conglomerate – and Asian News International (ANI), India's most extensive video news agency and a partner of Reuters news agency, as the major players of the process.
Last year, the researchers of EU DisinfoLab had uncovered 265 pro-Indian sites operating across 65 countries and traced them back to the New Delhi-based Srivastava Group.
The researchers said they had "uncovered an entire network of coordinated UN-accredited NGOs endorsing Indian interests and criticizing Pakistan constantly. We could link at least 10 of them directly to the Srivastava family, with several other suspicious NGOs pushing the same messages."
"These UN-accredited NGOs work in coordination with non-accredited think-tanks and minority-rights NGOs in Brussels and Geneva. Several of them – like the European Organization for Pakistani Minorities (EOPM), Baluchistan House and the South Asia Democratic Forum (SADF) – were directly but opaquely formed by the Srivastava group," it said.
In Geneva, the EU DisinfoLab report says, these think-tanks and NGOs are in charge of promoting, organizing demonstrations, and speaking during news conferences and UN side events. They were repeatedly given the UN floor on behalf of the accredited organizations, the report said.
The International Institute of Non-Aligned Studies (IINS), a think-tank generated by the Srivastava Group in Brussels, organized MEPs trips to Kashmir, Bangladesh, and the Maldives.
"Some of these trips led to much institutional debate, as the delegations of MEPs were often presented as official EU delegations when they were not traveling on behalf of the Parliament," the report said.
The European NGO has alleged that the ANI – which considers itself as South Asia's leading multimedia news agency providing content to TV, newspapers, digital platforms, and mobile apps – has played a significant role in the disinformation network.
The DisinfoLab report says that fake media websites and NGOs run by the Srivastava Group lobbied members of the European Parliament to write op-eds taking pro-India stances, often against Pakistan or China.
The articles, the report said, were then published on the group's fake news websites, which the ANI would quote as credible reports from the European media, from where the Indian media and news channels reproduced and disseminated them, often unchecked.
"The coverage – and often distortion – by ANI of the content produced in Brussels and Geneva led us to the Big News Network and the World News Network – an entire network of 500+ fake local media in 95 countries that have helped reproduce negative iterations about Pakistan (or China)," according to the report.
"We also realized that the content produced was primarily targeted at Indian nationals, with an extensive coverage of these barely known 'media,' MEPs and 'NGOs' in Europe," the report said.
However, this big revelation about ANI has not come as a surprise to many in India.
"The reason, the overall contour, doesn't come as a surprise is because we have been looking at the ANI ourselves, and we have done a long story on it," said Bal of The Caravan, which did a cover story on the ANI and how it amplified government voice.
The piece "looked at what the ANI has been doing within the country and in terms of reportage on Pakistan, reportage on elements within the country itself, whether we are talking about Punjab, or talking about dissidents, etc. There are a lot of questions about the role ANI plays, and I think we documented it well."
"That these two things should combine into a large-scale disinformation campaign by the Indian government, which extends beyond the present government to the previous government. Well, that is not a surprise, but the extent of it and the Indian ability to do so certainly comes as a revelation," Bal added.
Reacting to the India Chronicles report, Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday said his country has consistently drawn the attention of the international community to India's "subversive activities to undermine democracies in the region and export/fund extremism through structures of fake news organizations and bogus think tanks."
"The revelations by EU DisinfoLab on the widespread Indian network of subversive activities vindicates Pakistan's position and exposes its detractors," Khan wrote on Twitter.
"The international community needs to take notice of a rogue Indian regime that now threatens the stability of the global system."
Pakistan rejects the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) 's attempt to deny responsibility for the elaborate and reprehensible global disinformation campaign against Pakistan exposed by EU DisinfoLab.
The independent, non-profit disinformation watchdog's latest report illustrates in graphic detail the web of more than 750 media in 116 countries; over 550 website domain names registered; the resurrection of dead people; the impersonation of EU institutions and direct control of more than 10 NGOs accredited to the UN Human Rights Council, utilized to push fake news and false Indian propaganda against Pakistan since 2005.
The MEA's tall claims have no legs to stand on: the latest developments and international exposés have clearly shown that India is neither responsible nor a democracy, nor secular.
We have already shared extensive and irrefutable evidence of India's operational planning, promoting, aiding, abetting, financing, and executing terrorist activities in Pakistan. The report by EU DisinfoLab goes to corroborate further our long-held position about India's incurable obsession with Pakistan and its unrelenting smear campaign against Pakistan.
We urge the UN Human Rights machinery, particularly the Human Rights Council (HRC), to take a serious look as to how a prestigious platform such as the HRC could be misused in such a manner against a member state. The relevant authorities in Switzerland and Belgium must investigate the finances and transparency of the relevant NGOs registered within their jurisdiction.
We also reiterate our call that the EU authorities take full cognizance of this massive disinformation campaign against Pakistan and initiate steps to hold accountable those who misused their procedures and abused the European institutions.
For far too long, India has masqueraded itself as a 'victim' of terrorism. It is time that the world saw India's reality as a state-sponsor of terrorism and a purveyor of anti-Pakistan propaganda globally.
The latest revelations have established that no amount of Indian falsehoods can succeed in diverting attention from India's unspeakable crimes in the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) and in misleading the world community.
While countering India's state-terrorism and exposing its false narratives, Pakistan remains fully committed to supporting the Kashmiris in their legitimate struggle for the right to self-determination as per the relevant UN Security Council Resolutions.
(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)
