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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 5th, 2023

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  • gnuhaut@lemmy.mltoEurope@feddit.de2024 Oslo Freedom Forum Videos
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    5 months ago

    So that’s just a clearly factually inaccurate statement right there, makes me question the validity of the entire thing if they can’t get something that simple correct.

    It is not. The article is from 2013. Back then, that linked worked and shows exactly what the article is saying: he’s the only staff member listed. That was 8 years after the founding btw.

    And since the guy is clearly rich and has lots of political connections, you’d figure he’d have sued EF by now if there was anything incorrect in that article.


    Oh you launched into a whole defense of working with the far-right. Figures.

    Believe it or not, people on the “far right” can care about human rights too

    Yeah they care about human rights when they can weaponize them to pressure or topple governments that resist exploitation. Which is what the Oslo Freedom Forum is all about.

    Hmm… I wonder if living under an autocrat might have made him care about human rights and free expression.

    That or he’s pissed that they took his father’s Telco empire, and now he wants to topple the Venezuelan government and get his “birthright” back. We may never know.

    Also you avoided the whole part of in the article about what he was up to before the HRF. That guy was clearly an activist conservative bigot at the very least, and so he naturally evolved into a Mr. Human Rights Guy. He doesn’t just take money from far-right dipshits, he himself is a reactionary.


  • gnuhaut@lemmy.mltoEurope@feddit.de2024 Oslo Freedom Forum Videos
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    5 months ago

    https://electronicintifada.net/content/oslo-freedom-forum-founders-ties-islamophobes-who-inspired-mass-killer-anders-breivik/12451

    Who is Halvorssen? He is best known as the founder and CEO of the Human Rights Foundation, where he is listed as the lone staff member. The Oslo Freedom Forum is his brainchild, a confab he has sought to brand as “a Davos for human rights.”

    Founder and only staff member is this son of a Venezuelan oligarch. Sounds like a completely normal human rights group.

    The Electronic Intifada has obtained Internal Revenue Service (IRS) 990 forms filed by the Human Rights Foundation that include previously undisclosed information about its donors.

    The forms show that the Human Rights Foundation received approximately $600,000 in donations from the Donors Capital Fund from 2007 through 2011. Based in Northern Virginia, Donors Capital Fund is essentially a slush fund for the cadre of rightist donors who bankroll the conservative movement.

    Don’t disclose all their big donors. Kinda sus.

    “Since the fund handles money from multiple donors and donors names aren’t disclosed, contributions made through the Donors Capital Fund are difficult to trace,” the Center for American Progress noted in its 2011 landmark report “Fear, Inc.” “Potential donors are required to open a minimum $1 million account to utilize the fund’s services.”

    In 2009, Donors Capital Fund channeled $60 million to various conservative causes and from 2009 through 2011 a whopping $21,318,600 “to groups promoting Islamophobia,” according to the Center for American Progress.

    Peter Thiel is also one of the big donors.

    But a look at the early stages of Halvorssen’s career, which he spent as a conservative operative combating gay rights initiatives, feminism and multiculturalism on US college campuses, suggests otherwise.

    That checks out.



  • The US has the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which is actually stricter. The “Russian law” shit is just framing. Countries have a right to know who’s meddling in their shit, in fact meddling is illegal under international law. The fact that they feel this threatened by a mere transparency law speaks volumes.

    How would you like it if some politicans from other countries (let’s pretend it’s Russia since you seem very concerned about them) came to your capital and threatened “severe consequences” for even daring to want to monitor foreign influence. These protestors are basically demanding to surrender all sovereignty to EU/US/billionaire funded NGOs.

    Imagine living in country where core government functions, like writing laws, regulation, and social services are provided by NGOs which are beholden to foreign donors. No oversight by any local authority and definitely not beholden to the people. This is about as far from democracy as you can get, this will ruin a place.