12 Aug The Intolerance Network
Today, 5th August 2021, WikiLeaks publishes “The Intolerance Network” over 17,000 documents from internationally active right wing campaigning organisations HazteOir and CitizenGO. The documents date from 2001 to 2017 and cover the founding of CitizenGO and early activities of both organisations. The documents are from their internal systems and cover things like: spreadsheets of donors and members, strategy and planning documents, letters, financial charts and legal and training documents.
HazteOir was first founded in 2001 in Spain to campaign for right wing values, in 2013 it founded CitizenGO to spread its work beyond Spanish speaking countries. This dataset includes the founding of CitizenGo, and documents from HazteOir organising, along with US based The Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society, the 2012 World Congress for Families (WCF) in Madrid. The WCF brings together right wing organisations that promote opposition to LGBTQI+ and reproductive rights, it has been labeled as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and a 2014 Human Rights Campaign report stated “The World Congress of Families (WCF) is one of the most influential American organizations involved in the export of hate”.
Tying all these organisations together is Ignacio Arsuaga, founder of HazteOir and on the board of CitizenGo and was awarded the 2013 WCF “Man of the Year Award”. The WCF President, Brian Brown – an American campaigner against LGBTQI+ rights, is also on the board of CitizenGo. Both HazteOir and CitizenGo are part of a larger global network of right wing organisations that work together to push their values in grassroots and political spheres.
CitizenGo partners to push campaigns with a number of organisations, for example it ran a petition with the Population Research Institute “Abortion is NOT a Human Right!”. They work to mobilize grassroot support, and are keen to stress this is their base, however it is clear through the dataset that they aim to raise large funds and influence policy at a high level. A 2019 undercover investigation by OpenDemocracy confirmed ties between Spanish HazteOir and CitizenGo with right wing political parties across Europe in Spain, Italy and Hungary. There have also been reports regarding ties to El Yunque, a secret militant Mexican Group, a tie which HazteOir has tried to rid itself of.
Both HazteOir and CitizenGo run their campaigns and other work under the guise of family values but it is clear through the document set that their values are rooted in an extremely ultra conservative Christian context. They do a lot of work online starting petitions but have also worked in the physical world, for example their “hate bus” – a bright orange bus has with slogans such as “boys are boys” has toured in Spain and America.
WikiLeaks publishes this dataset as part of our goal to protect censored documents of political and historical importance. The dataset appears to be the same that was online briefly in 2017 after a hack that was claimed by the “ACAB Gang”, but after legal action was removed from being published on the internet.
Whilst a trend to the right globally is becoming more visible it is important to understand the organisations that are instrumental in working to effect this change. As an important part of this network WikiLeaks believes the documents that show the origins of CitizenGo are an important part of the public record.
WikiLeaks Editor Kristinn Hrafnsson said: “As ultra right wing political groups have gained strength in latter years with increasing attacks on woman’s and LGBTQI+ rights, it is valuable to have access to documents from those who have lobbied for these changes on a global basis. The people have a right to know where political policies are hatched”.
As part of WikiLeaks’ belief in not only securing the preservation of, but also ease of use of large datasets, we have worked to ensure that not only is this dataset preserved in our library, but that it is also searchable and well organised so that it can be used by everyone.
We have also worked to redact the documents, which included a lot of personal information which was not relevant to the political importance of the data. We are pleased today to add “The Intolerance Network” to our evergrowing online library, and to be adding to all the valuable work on this topic that has preceeded us.