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28 Jul, 10 tweets, 5 min read
This morning the home of Bellingcat partner Roman @Dobrokhotov was raided by Russian police, along with the home of his parents. Roman heads @the_ins_ru, which has partnered with Bellingcat on numerous investigations over the years. wired.com/story/roman-do…
This comes the week after Russian authorities added The Insider to a registry of "Foreign Agents". The Insider is one of many independent media organisations labelled this way as Russia cracks down on independent media ahead of upcoming elections. themoscowtimes.com/2021/07/23/rus…
Russian authorities claim today's raid was a response to a criminal complaint made on behalf of Dutch MH17 truther @maxvanderwerff by Russian lawyer Stalina Gurevich for defamation.
This complaint followed an investigation by @the_ins_ru and Bellingcat that exposed links between Bonanza Media and the GRU. Max van der Werff and former Russia Today journalist Yana Yerlashova founded the website that spread disinformation about MH17. bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…
Emails and phone records obtained by Bellingcat showed that Yerlashova was in contact by phone and email with GRU officers Sergey Chebanov & Andrey Ilchenko. Among the emails were a draft article later published on Bonanza Media and passport copies of Yerlashova and Van der Werff
Bonanza Media's Erik van de Beek's complaint to the Dutch Council of Journalism against De Groene Amsterdammer, after De Groene reported on Bellingcat's investigation into Bonanza Media's links to the Russian intelligence services, was recently rejected rvdj.nl/2021/33
In their response The Council for Journalism states "These passages [referring to the text of the De Groene article], which follow from Bellingcat's report, sufficiently show that a Russian intelligence service has (had) influence within Bonanza Media." rvdj.nl/2021/33
Roman Dobrokhotov had planned to travel abroad today for a series of work meetings, including with his @bellingcat colleagues. According to his lawyer, his travel passport was confiscated today, along with electronic devices used by him and his minor children.
Reports that Roman @Dobrokhotov has now been released from detention
TASS reports that "According to the materials of the case, the investigators believe that Dobrokhotov slandered not only the journalist, but also the officers of the GRU."
t.me/tass_agency/66…

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More from @bellingcat

Bellingcat Profile picture
23 Jul
The Russian government has added @the_ins_ru to the registry of "foreign agents". This marks yet another instance of Russia cracking down on all independent media, especially those who have investigated the government's corruption and wrongdoing.
theins.ru/news/243722
We have worked with @the_ins_ru on numerous high-profiles stories since 2017 -- our first collaboration was a two-part investigation between them and @christogrozev into the GRU-organized (failed) coup in Montenegro:
bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…
bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…
Since then, @the_ins_ru has worked to crack some of the biggest stories in independent investigative journalism across the world, mostly focused on the activities of Russia's security agencies. These stories have been done both with us and on their own.
Read 7 tweets
Bellingcat Profile picture
20 Jul
Bellingcat has teamed up with Forensic Architecture (@ForensicArchi ), @ECCHRBerlin and @mnemonicorg , alongside the Global Legal Action Network (@GLAN_LAW ), to create an interactive map examining airstrikes in Yemen. bellingcat.com/news/mena/2021…
This is an inaugural project by Investigative Commons, the new Berlin-based hub bringing together open source, legal and investigative experts to examine human rights issues. theguardian.com/law/2021/jun/2…
The new map can be seen below. It will be a useful resource for researchers and journalists covering Yemen’s humanitarian crisis, which has dragged on for over six years. yemen.forensic-architecture.org
Read 13 tweets
Bellingcat Profile picture
16 Jul
In Cameroon’s Anglophone regions, separatist groups have been battling government forces since 2016.

Thousands have been killed & many more displaced. Among those most impacted have been schoolchildren & teachers. New from @Bellingcat and @Newsy bellingcat.com/news/africa/20…
@Newsy Cameroon’s Anglophone conflict is as complicated as it is brutal. A separatist-enforced boycott of schooling has seen classrooms shuttered. The aim, according to separatist leaders, is to force the Cameroonian government to the negotiating table.
@Newsy But as time has dragged on, enforcement of the boycott has become increasingly radical and the safety of students and teachers has deteriorated.
Read 20 tweets
Bellingcat Profile picture
15 Jul
Our partners @derspiegel reveal that Fabrice Leggeri, the head of Frontex, allegedly attempted to cover-up pushbacks happening in the Aegean Sea.

According to a new report by the European Parliament, Leggeri had incriminating evidence destroyed.

spiegel.de/ausland/geflue…
The report reveals that Leggeri personally handled the processing of a pushback which happened on 18-19 April, withholding information about it from the European Parliament and retrospectively classifying the incident in a way which bypassed Frontex’s fundamental rights officer.
According to internal emails, Leggeri instructed the fundamental rights officer to delete all information she had collected about the incident.

MEP @Tineke_Strik noted that “The action reveals that Leggeri does not hesitate to abuse his power to protect the Greek government”
Read 6 tweets
Bellingcat Profile picture
6 Jul
Over the past year, Bellingcat’s Investigative Tech Team has begun creating its own open source research tools.

Now, the tech team is opening up to contributions from, and collaborations with, developers and open source investigators: bellingcat.com/resources/2021…
Open source investigations rely on the skills of human researchers. However, tools can help make the process significantly easier
Among the tools created by Bellingcat’s Investigative Tech Team so far are :

- A tool for finding Instagram "locations"
- An automatic video archiver for Google Sheets
- A Google Earth Engine application for finding small cloud-free subregions in cloudy satellite imagery.
Read 10 tweets
Bellingcat Profile picture
1 Jul
In a matter of weeks, the term “White Boy Summer” has gone from a seemingly innocent, mainstream internet fad to a viral meme among neo-Nazis and white supremacists with potentially dangerous consequences

New from @IwriteOK and @hungrybowtie bellingcat.com/news/2021/07/0…
@IwriteOK @hungrybowtie The phrase ‘White Boy Summer’ originates from a viral Instagram video posted by the actor and rapper, Chet Hanks in March. There appears to be nothing racist or political about Hanks’ use of the phrase.

But the term has been adopted by the extreme far-right in the months since
@IwriteOK @hungrybowtie Versions of the far-right’s dark subversion of the WBS meme have traveled from 4chan and encrypted messaging service Telegram, to more popular social media apps like TikTok where Bellingcat found one video featuring Nazi iconography that had been viewed more than 10k times.
Read 12 tweets

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