Prime Minister Imran Khan said the revelations by the European Union’s DisinfoLab on the widespread Indian network of subversive activities vindicated Pakistan’s position and exposed its detractors.
“The international community needs to take notice of a rogue Indian regime that now threatens the stability of the global system,” he said in a tweet posted on his social media account.
The prime minister said Pakistan had consistently drawn attention of the international community to India’s subversive activities to undermine democracies in the region and fund extremism through structures of fake news organizations and “think tanks”.
Recently the government of Pakistan provided dossier to the United Nations of India’s state terrorism in Pakistan, he added.
Last December, the watchdog busted 265 pro-India websites operating across 65 countries. They were “found to be responsible for anti-Pakistan lobbying events in Europe.”
The EU DisinfoLab’s investigative report, titled “Indian Chronicles,” narrated how the name of Martin Schulz, former president of the European Parliament, was misused.
“It seemed he was now heading Canners International, an NGO dedicated to the promotion of…food in cans.
“We soon found that the NGO he was supposedly leading officially ceased to exist in 2007 and was now regularly speaking at the UN Human Rights Council [UNHRC] to slam Pakistan,” the watchdog said.
The disinformation network worked on a two-pronged strategy.
In Geneva, it used think-tanks and NGOs for lobbying, protesting and taking the floor at the UNHRC on behalf of “accredited” organizations.
In Brussels, the focus was on Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) who were taken on international trips and solicited to write op-eds for fake outlets like EU Chronicle.
The write-ups would then be amplified by Asian News International (ANI) — India’s largest wire service and video news agency.
The disinformation network was spread across 116 countries with fake editors and journalists working with 10 UN-recognized NGOs.