Texty.org.ua team receives threats after article about American figures demanding to stop supporting Ukraine
A team of journalists from Texty.org.ua reported pressure and threats after publishing an article about American figures who advocate for the termination of aid to Ukraine.
According to Censor.NET, this is reported in a statement by the journalists of the publication.
Texty.org.ua had previously published an article analysing the political, media and expert environment in the United States, which influences decision-making on further support for Ukraine in the Russian-Ukrainian war.
"We do not call the defendants in this study enemies of Ukraine, we do not challenge or condemn their right to freedom of expression, we only state the fact that they oppose support for Ukraine and that the arguments that many of them give are in line with the narratives of Russian propaganda about Ukraine.
We value and respect freedom of speech, which is a prerequisite for the existence of a democratic society. In our turn, we reserve the right to provide evidence, state facts, debunk false arguments and compare them with those spread by Russian propaganda around the world," the authors stressed.
The journalists said that after the publication of this article, the director of the Ron Paul Institute, Daniel McAdams, first posted a message on social media platform X, then an article on the Institute's website, in which he stated that Texty.org.ua, funded by the US government, had created a hate list of American citizens. As evidence of our funding by the US government, the article mentions that one of the co-founders of our publication was trained as part of the US government's TechCAMP project.
In fact, in 2013, 2014, and 2015, Anatolii Bondarenko acted pro bono as a data journalism trainer in this project.
Subsequently, other conservative publications, far-right and left-wing American activists began to spread this information, attacking the Texty.org.ua editorial board and the authors of the article personally and even making threats.
At the same time, on 11 June, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green also called the publication an enemies list and said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was behind it.
On 12 June, the FOX news website reported that Senator J.D. Vance and US House of Representatives member Matt Gaetz called on US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to send them information about the Ukrainian NGO Texty.org.ua by 28 June.
The authors of the letter also appealed to the House Appropriations Committee to end US support for Texty.org.ua. On Tuesday, the committee adopted the following resolution.
On 13 June, Elon Mask, the owner of the social network X, who was also mentioned in the study, responded to the Republican congressman's call to withdraw any donor support by calling for the organisation to be added to the list of terrorist organisations.
"We consider this campaign to be pressure on freedom of speech and a manifestation of chauvinism towards Ukrainian citizens. After all, our haters believe that we do not have the right to investigate the flow of false information they produce about our country and us because they are US citizens and we are not," the journalists concluded.
