Bellingcat

From ProleWiki, the proletarian encyclopedia
Sources of funds for Bellingcat.[1] All amounts in Euro. 40,000 were received by "governments".

Bellingcat is a self-described "independent international collective of researchers, investigators and citizen journalists using open source and social media investigation to probe a variety of subjects."[2]

While Bellingcat claims that it "does not solicit or accept funding and contributions directly from any national government"[2], their own reported income for 2021 contradicts this claim.

A 2021 Grayzone investigation uncovered that Bellingcat is an organisation largely funded by various European, UK and US intelligence agencies — including the National Endowment for Democracy, the European Union itself, and the Human Rights Foundation (an imperialist organisation that solely targets governments outside the imperial core)[1]. Additionally, a CIA official has declared that they "love" Bellingcat.[3]

With this funding, Bellingcat has promoted ShamiWitness,[4] The Islamic State's top recruiter and propagandist on Twitter, and routinely publishes propaganda against Russia[5] (i.e. in the interest of the imperial core).

Despite Bellingcat's claims to value “ …the use of open source material…”, the founder and creative director, Eliot Higgins, has openly mocked Julian Assange.[2][6]

Since the Operation Flood of Al-Aqsa, Bellingcat has published six reports minimising the genocide of the Palestinian people perpetrated by the Zionist Entity.[7] Notably, they have failed to publish any reports on the continuous bombing campaigns, starvation and massacres – particularly the Flour Massacre – on the men, women and children in the Gaza Strip.[8]

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 "Annual Accounts 2020 [pdf"]. Bellingcat.
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 "About page". Bellingcat.
  3. "Bellingcat Can Say What U.S. Intelligence Can’t" (2020-12-17). Foreign Policy.
  4. "ShamiWitness: How Bellingcat and neocons collaborated with ISIS’ most influential propagandist on Twitter" (2018-10-29). The Grayzone.
  5. "Page on topic of Ukraine". Bellingcat.
  6. Eliot Higgins (2019-04-11). Twitter. Archived from the original on 2020-06-14. Retrieved 2023-03-26.
  7. "Israel". Bellingcat. Archived from the original on 2024-03-02. Retrieved 2024-03-02.
  8. Matt Kennard (2024-02-28). Twitter. Archived from the original on 2024-03-02. Retrieved 2024-03-02.