This editorial appears in the September 9, 2022 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
[Print version of this editorial
Major Danish Daily: CCD is ‘Orwellian’
Jyllands-Posten, one of Denmark’s three leading national newspapers, posted an editorial Aug. 11 under the title “Ukraine and Free Speech.” The editorial states:
It is worrying when Ukraine blacklists researchers and others who have a different view of the conflict from the unequivocally pro-Ukrainian one.
It begins by stating the newspaper’s total support for Ukraine’s “struggle for freedom” and that Ukraine “naturally belongs in Europe, and eventually in the European Union.” But it then challenges the blacklist published by the Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD). To join the EU, they write,
There are conditions to be met. Among them is the fundamental acceptance of free speech. [Despite the war,] it is still necessary for the country, and especially its President, to show that it accepts free speech and the right to disagree.
The editorial describes the CCD’s blacklist as “like something out of George Orwell’s 1984,” and describes the 72 people targeted as “international politicians, thinkers and researchers, including four Danes [actually three from Denmark and one Swede —ed.].” Importantly, the editors identify what these four have in common:
[T]hey took part in a seminar at the end of May [sponsored by the Schiller Institute —ed.] on alternatives to the current security policy structure in the world in order to reduce tensions and the division of countries into, for example, members and non-members of NATO; the theme of the seminar and the questioning of Western sanctions policy are of course perfectly legitimate in a free and open society.... [To blacklist researchers and others] can hardly be seen as anything other than an attempt to silence them and label any angle other than the pro-Ukrainian one as pro-Russian, and thus on the wrong side of history.
They conclude with a warning to the Ukraine regime:
[I]n rejecting free speech, free research and free debate, it is precisely Ukraine and its President who are in danger of moving to the wrong side, far from the ideals that they will hopefully pursue on the other side of the war. [back to text]
