DISINFORMATION

A gesture of solidarity with the victims of the terrorist act in 2022 has become a pretext for toxic and hateful attacks

Infosecurity.sk presents an overview of disinformation trends that have been on the rise in the last two weeks:

• The second anniversary of the terrorist attack in front of Bratislava's Tepláreň club on 12 October 2022 prompted not only a wave of solidarity, but also toxic and hateful posts on social media. The campaign led by representatives of the far-right Republika party, Milan Uhrík and Milan Mazurek, who attacked the initiative of the Trenčín secondary grammar school, deserved special attention. The school had planned to organize a commemorative event for the victims of the attack, but eventually cancelled it under political pressure.
• Both politicians, as well as other actors from the disinformation environment, used the situation to sensationalize, boost fear and disillusionment about the alleged brainwashing of children, which is supposed to take place on a widespread basis in Slovak schools. Disinformation campaigners have dehumanized sexual minorities, downplayed their rights and attacked NGOs dedicated to supporting and educating about the LGBTI+ community.
• The 80th anniversary of the Carpatho-Dukla operation has attracted posts containing myths about the Slovak National Uprising and distorted narratives about the war in Ukraine. At the anniversary celebrations, Prime Minister Robert Fico revived pro-Soviet sentiments and presented false calls for peace. Responsibility for war in Ukraine was once again attributed to the West, which allegedly fuelles the conflict, while the real peace, according to the disinformers, has always come from the East.

The commemoration sparked a wave of lies and hatred

One of the topics that dominated the Slovak information space in the past two weeks was the second anniversary of the hate terrorist attack in front of the Bratislava club Tepláreň (the club for LGBTI+ community members) on 12 October 2022, in which two young people, members of the community, lost their lives.

In addition to expressions of solidarity and remembrances of lives lost, there was also hateful rhetoric and outright attacks against the LGBTI+ community. This is particularly striking given the fact that it was hate speech and toxicity in the online space (particularly on the Telegram platform) that prompted the attack itself.

The monitoring showed that a significant part of the attention during the monitored period was earned by posts related to the commemorative event at the secondary grammar school in Trenčín, with the topic being exploited mainly by political representatives of the far-right. The event, dubbed the Day of Diversity, was to be organized on 11 October at the Secondary Grammar School of Ľudovít Štúr. However, the management of the school canceled it following political pressure from MEP Milan Mazurek, a member of the far-right party Republika. The commemorative event was finally held on the initiative of the city mayor Richard Rybníček at the Students' Square, in close proximity to the school.

The event to mark the anniversary of the hate-motivated attack at the Tepláreň was already held at the school in October 2023. A year later, however, it became a thorn in the side of Milan Mazurek, who in a video called for its cancellation and attacked the teacher who covered the event. The event was supposed to include colorful clothing to express solidarity with the victims of the Tepláreň attack and the exhibition of LGBTI+-themed posters. From this, Mazurek wrongly inferred that the teacher wanted to "push her own political agenda, her rainbow agenda" on the children. He described the act of solidarity with the victims of a hateful act of terrorism as part of "nonsensical ideological concepts" that are pushed "into the smallest defenseless children".

The school eventually canceled the event to protect the students, teachers and school, and the MEP spoke of winning against the "rainbow fanatics". Minister of Education Tomáš Drucker (Hlas-SD) spoke out against Mazurek's actions. At a press conference, he condemned such intimidation and pointed to the apolitical nature of the schools. In his opinion, the content of education should not be decided by people who deny the Holocaust or for whom the Slovak National Uprising as a dark moment of Slovak history (thus referring to the statements of Republika’s members Milan Uhrík and Milan Mazurek from the past). The Ministry of Education also issued a warning on its website about the spread of disinformation about the school in Trenčín, which was accused of spreading ideology for no real reason.

Minister of Education Drucker became the target of Milan Mazurek's insults following his statement. He once again distorted the situation and presented claims that the ministry is supposed to protect the moral education of our youth "so that children in the school environment are not turned into voters of Progressive Slovakia" (PS). He added that the PS is not in opposition, but directly in government and in the Ministry of Education, "where they are working hard to ensure that more and more young people fall for this rainbow progressive propaganda." Mazurek said the government was making a mistake by "tolerating the progressive Drucker" who "stood up for the PS instead of standing up for national and traditional values".

Mazurek's rhetoric was echoed by his colleague from the EP, Milan Uhrík (the leader of the Republika party), who in a Facebook video presented the cases of schools in Tisovec and Bardejov, where similar activities were proposed to support the victims of the Tepláreň attack. According to Uhrík, it was an attempt to segregate children and judge them according to how they come or do not come dressed. In reality, it was an activity in which students could participate on a voluntary basis. In the video, Uhrík talked about the fact that people who want to introduce such symbolism into Slovak schools are fascists. Thus, paradoxically, he described the remembrance of the victims of a hate crime and the expression of solidarity and tolerance with a minority as a manifestation of far-right ideology.

Mazurek operated with the same narrative, attacking so-called rainbow extremists and groups. These, he said, manifest "perverse efforts to indoctrinate children in schools." The rhetoric of both politicians was motivated by an attempt to create the perception of a threat to a vulnerable group - in this case, children - by an internal enemy that needed to be dealt with firmly. Already mentioned above were the statements about the alleged pushing of ideology into the minds of young defenseless children. In the case of the students of the Trenčín secondary grammar school, these are, of course, adolescents who have already had their personalities and opinions shaped to a large extent. However, this has not prevented the MEPs from misleading and pushing the topic to radical positions in order to provoke anger and outrage from their followers.

The topic of the anniversary of the October 2022 attack near the Tepláreň club became a pretext for producing more hateful posts and content, with which disinformers wanted to dehumanize sexual minorities, downplay their rights, as well as attack NGOs dedicated to supporting them and educating public about the LGBTI+ community.

This was evident, for example, in the video by Milan Uhrík, who – like many times in the past – tried to cause a sensation with claims of brainwashing in schools. In the video, Uhrík called on school pupils, as well as employees from other sectors, to report to him or to the party contacts cases where they are "forced to change into women's clothes" or are "brainwashed with rainbow obscenities". In the video, he indicated that they would "look into" such cases.

Ľuboš Blaha, a MEP for SMER-SSD, also wrote about the alleged rainbow abominations at schools in the post on Telegram, whose text was also shared on the party's official Facebook page. According to Blaha, such activities should be cracked down on, but instead we have allegedly witnessed a lynching and bullying of the association Ženy v sukniach (Women in Skirts), "which has been attacked by the liberal media for spreading Russian propaganda in schools".

Blaha was reacting to the response to a discussion led by war veteran Peter Andreánsky and pro-Russian propagandist Miloš Zverina at the Škultétyho 1 Primary School in Nitra, which took place at the end of September and included an exhibition of posters on the anniversary of the Slovak National Uprising (SNP). According to the civic initiative Nie v našom meste (Not in Our City), which drew attention to the event, it was a demonstration of "distortion of history by selective presentation of facts, inserting one's own values and opinions". The topic of the SNP was presented by Zverina from the pro-Russian association o.z. Slavica, known for its promotion of pan-Slavic ideas and visits to Moscow. He is also the author of the conspiratorial book Genocída Slovanov (The Genocide of the Slavs) and a former candidate in the EP elections for the far-right party of Marian Kotleba.

Since posts containing narratives about sexual minorities have been gaining prominence in the Slovak information space again in the last two weeks, we also looked at them using the analytical tool Gerulata Juno. We used it to analyze the most popular posts on Slovak Facebook that contained the keyword "LGBTI" or "rainbow". We excluded from the list those posts that did not contain problematic narratives. We then evaluated the posts based on the total number of interactions (the sum of all reactions, comments and shares).

The post with the most interactions belongs to Milan Mazurek, a MEP for the far-right party Republika. In the video, Mazurek presented attacks on the mayor of Trenčín, Richard Rybníček, for supporting the Day of Diversity, an event that was supposed to be organized at the Trenčín secondary grammar school. We described the situation regarding the event dedicated to the victims of the terrorist attack on Zamocká Street in Bratislava above. As the event was held under the auspices of the city after the event was canceled, its mayor, Rybníček, became the target of Mazurek's attacks. In the video, the MEP referred to him as a "greedy, spineless scumbag" and a "sociopath" and called on him to "keep his hands off the children" and not to abuse the innocence of children's souls with his rainbow fanatic friends to push progressive propaganda on them and make them PS voters. He thus continued sensationalizing and creating outrage.

The second post was published by the disinformation online portal InfoVojna, which shared one of its articles on Facebook. The portal reported that the temporarily appointed director of the Slovak National Theatre (SND), Zuzana Ťapáková, had decided to ban the performance Mesačný kameň (Moonstone) by Prague's Štúdio hrdinov (Studio of Heroes), which was to be a part of the LGBT festival Drama Queer. InfoVojna takes the article content largely from another media Denník N, but in the conclusion it presents the views of Minister of Culture Martina Šimkovičová and quotes an article by the disinformation portal Hlavný denník, which downplays the situation considerably. The author, Ivan Brožík, states in the quoted part that Ťapáková has become an anti-social element "because as director of the state-owned Slovak National Theatre she has abolished the pushing of "queer" ideology from the stage into the SND audience". Brožík also supplemented his article with his own assumptions and distorted ideas about the LGBTI+ community, which he insulted by claiming that its members arbitrarily identify as various sexual minorities or "ninety other species on the planet (...), even as a gay wolf, bisexual earthworm or transgender horse".

Milan Mazurek communicated the topic of the Day of Diversity at the Trenčín secondary grammar school through yet another video. In it he spoke about the great victory, which was to be the cancellation of the event, but at the same time he attacked the mayor of Trenčín, Rybníček, and the Ministry of Education, which allegedly "publicly defends progressives and threatens patriots". At the same time, the MEP addressed the government, which he said was two-faced: "If they are serious about their fight against progressivism, they will intervene against the progressives in their own government, in the Ministry of Education, and protect the moral education of the youth! If they don't, then all their videos about "bad PS" are just acts for the voters."

The next post belongs to the pro-Russian biker gang BRAT za BRATA. In the video, gang leader Matúš Alexa criticizes the state purchase of military equipment and claims that people want peace and not to live in war. He said that he does not understand who to arm and fight against. According to him, the people have outsmarted the government, which is not delivering on what it announced before the elections. The real problem that the government should be addressing, according to Alexa, is the spread of rainbow propaganda, fascism and Nazism. It is likely that he deliberately linked LGBTI+ with far-right ideologies in his rhetoric. These phenomena, he says, continue to proliferate in schools. The gang leader concluded the video by saying that the enemy needs to be confronted and therefore the Slovak nation should rise up again and "clean and make order".

The last place belongs to the post of the official SMER-SSD website, which shared the text of the post of its MEP Ľuboš Blaha from Telegram. It is a post in which Blaha reacts to a discussion with war veteran Andreánsky and pro-Russian propagandist Zverina at the elementary school in Nitra, which we wrote about above. In addition to this topic, the MEP also wrote about the case of judge Milan Chalupka of the Bratislava Regional Court, who was recently removed from office because he could not explain the origin of the almost 700 thousand euros he received in his bank account in 2021. This was also the judge who, according to the MEP, "scandalously ruled" that the then President Zuzana Čaputová could not be described as an American agent. Blaha tried to conspiratorially link the two facts: "Such a 'pure' judge robbed me of my constitutional right to freedom of speech. Without me being able to defend myself because there wasn't even a trial - the 700,000 gentleman simply ruled." According to Blaha, the judge was thus trying to protect the President, which he said was suspicious in light of the amount received. Even though the decision in the case occurred in March 2022, Blaha is spreading unverified and unsubstantiated claims.

Abuse of historical milestones for pro-Russian propaganda

During the monitored period, we also noted an increased number of posts reporting on the anniversary of the 1944 Carpatho-Dukla operation (also known as the Battle of Dukla Pass), which was one of the most significant milestones of the Slovak National Uprising (SNP) and thanks to which post-war Czechoslovakia came out on the side of the victorious powers. SNP was organized by the Slovak resistance during the Second World War, and was directed against the German invasion of Slovakia, as well as against the Slovak collaborationist regime of Jozef Tiso. The celebrations of the 80th anniversary of the operation fell on 6 October and were held in Dukla and Svidník.

The official programme of the event included a speech by Prime Minister Robert Fico, who highlighted the importance of the operation, but also spread myths about the SNP and used the topic to present distorted narratives about the war in Ukraine. Just as at the end of August Fico revived pro-Soviet sentiments and presented false calls for peace at the SNP anniversary celebrations, this time he also reached for myths and false narratives.

According to him, war, suffering and death were not celebrated at Dukla, but peace. However, in Europe, he said, there supposedly is a perverse fashion where, instead of efforts to stop the roar of the guns, "there is thunderous applause, loud cheering and even significant material decisions which only encourage the war to go on". In his speech, Fico criticized the negotiations on the possibility of supplying medium- and long-range missiles to the Ukrainian armed forces.

Fico used the celebration of the Carpatho-Dukla operation to present the idea of a productive cooperation of the "glorious Red Army" with the soldiers of the first Czechoslovak army corps. Therefore, according to the Prime Minister, everyone should be asked: "for God's sake, let us stop killing Slavs", because during the SNP, Slavs from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus came to our aid. He distorted the situation considerably when he linked it to the current conflict in Ukraine. The fact that Russia unprovokedly attacked Slavic Ukraine had no place in his speech.

Fico also returned to the topic in another post, which included a recording of his interview with STVR (Slovak public broadcaster). In the speech, the prime minister stated that it was necessary to "promote truthful education in schools and general awareness of the significant events of history, which are presented in the media in a biased way or only marginally". In the programme, Fico claimed that narratives were being spread about the Carpatho-Dukla operation that supposedly had too many unnecessary casualties, or that it was an initiative of the USSR, which only wanted to show sympathies for Czechoslovakia. Fico said that he wants not only to preserve the historical memory of the nation, but also to protect the name of the Slovaks, whom the West is allegedly trying to portray as objects of history rather than active agents. He referred to a new book on the Second World War, which allegedly did not mention the SNP or the Carpatho-Dukla operation, but did not specify anything about the book and generalized this aspect to the entire public discourse on the war.

Fico did not forget to mention his traditional narrative of peace in the STVR programme, adding that Slavs are being killed in Ukraine "and Europe is significantly supporting this killing". Once again, he used the media space to spread false calls for peace and to try to discredit the West and the European Union as alleged warmongers. In the programme, he also made the call: "Stop killing each other, Slavs, just because the West wants you to". In this case, it was a straightforward attribution of responsibility for the war to the West, without seeing that Russia is the sole and unequivocal aggressor.

Fico continued his rhetoric in the programme on Rádio Slovensko (Radio Slovakia, functioning under STVR) called Sobotné dialógy (Saturday Dialogues). He claimed in the programme on the one hand that he would do everything for good relations with Ukraine, but at the same time said that after the war he would work to restore standard economic and political relations with Russia. He added that the West was planning to bring Russia to its knees through Ukraine (meaning through the war), and also expressed the conspiratorial belief that the war was going on because of the economic interests of big business. Finally, Fico said that he considers the linguistic and historical proximity with Russia important and plans to hold a peace rally in Moscow next year to mark the anniversary of the SNP. What is interesting in this case is the fact that the Prime Minister used the channels of the former RTVS (public service television and radio broadcaster) to spread these messages, which are subject to stronger state control following the changes in the media. Neither the presenters at STVR nor at Radio Slovakia objected to his misleading and distorting statements.

At the end of the video, Fico said that freedom came from the East. This statement was also part of a post by Fico's party colleague Juraj Gedra, who said this on the anniversary of the Carpatho-Dukla operation: 'If once in WWII freedom and peace came from the East, we will say it loud and clear, even the reluctance of the progressive media will never change that.'

Eduard Chmelár, a dubious political analyst and former advisor to Robert Fico, also spoke in a Facebook post about the liberation by the Red Army in the Second World War, while downplaying the later consequences of existing under the USSR and Soviet occupation. He deliberately did not present the post-war period in the context of the previous liberation, adding: "Yes, freedom came from the East, not the West, and this truth is so simple that anyone who does not understand it should repeat the primary school curriculum." In this way, he himself denigrates the participation of members of other states in the anti-fascist resistance, its support from the West, as well as the involvement of the Western Allies in the war itself.

Project Infosecurity.sk organized by Adapt Institute, which is supported by the Prague office of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, continuously monitors the activities of both Slovak and foreign disinformation actors, but focuses mainly on the former. The project activities are built upon daily monitoring of emerging disinformation, hoaxes, and conspiracy theories in the online information space. This approach allows the analysts to identify disinformation posts and narratives that resonated with the public the most, as well as to find out where they originated, and how they spread and evolved on social media. The report takes the form of a bi-weekly summary of arising trends in the spread of malicious information content online. Based on that, Infosecurity.sk can inform the public about emerging and current trends in the field of disinformation, manipulation, and propaganda.