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WikiLeaks unveiled this Friday more than 17,000 internal and confidential documents of Spanish ultra-Catholic organizations, which show that donations from "large fortunes" made possible the arrival of the far-right VOX party in Spain.
In a joint publication of the leaks platform with five media outlets - Il Fatto Quotidiano (Italy), Taz (Germany), Público (Spain) and Contralínea (Mexico) - the project called 'La Red de Intolerancia' (The Network of Intolerance) was presented.
The documents, ranging from 2001 to 2017, belong to the organizations Hazte Oír and CitizenGo, and include propaganda and fundraising campaigns, internal instructions on the management of adverse information, presentations, letters addressed to international partners, among other things.
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All this has been verified by Wikileaks and by the media that collaborated for months in the investigation, as explained in an exclusive report by the Spanish newspaper Público.
The material shows all the donors - among them some foreign tycoons - who financed Hazte Oír, founded by Ignacio Arsuaga Rato, nephew of former Vice President Rodrigo Rato, sentenced in 2018 to four and a half years in prison for corruption, and friend of Santiago Abascal, leader of VOX.
Arsuaga also participated in the birth of the international ultra-Catholic platform CitizenGo, created to spread his work outside Spanish-speaking nations, and which operates in half a hundred countries and has permanent headquarters in 15 cities.
"Both Hazte Oír and CitizenGo run their campaigns and other work under the guise of family values, but through the set of documents it is clear that their values are rooted in an extremely ultraconservative Christian context," WikiLeaks said in a statement.
WikiLeaks editor Kristinn Hrafnsson commented that "as far-right political groups have gained strength in recent years with increasing attacks on women's and LGBTQI+ rights, it is valuable to have access to documents from those who have pushed for these changes globally." "People have the right to know where policies are brewing," she added.
RELEASE: The Intolerance Network: 17,000 documents from HazteOir and CitizenGO, Spanish right-wing campaigning organizations particularly opposed to LGBTQI+ and reproductive rights
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) August 5, 2021
Link and Press Release: https://t.co/dIsOttlvR8 pic.twitter.com/kDPXWxwic7
The documents show the collaboration of the two organizations with 'The Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society', based in the US, to hold in Spain the World Family Congress (WFC), in 2012.
WikiLeaks recalls that the WFC brings together right-wing organizations that promote opposition against LGBTQI+ people and reproductive rights.
The WCF was even labeled as a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a human rights advocacy organization, while the 'Human Rights Campaign' foundation considered it one of "the most influential US organizations involved in the export of hate."
For the celebration of the WFC in Spain, according to Público, there is a list of "Large Major Donors", where more than 209 contributors appear "to finance the ultra-Catholic organization, with contributions of thousands of euros."
Among the best known names are:
Esther Koplowitz: president of the Board of Directors of Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas (FCC)
Isidoro Álvarez (1935-2014): president of the El Corte Inglés group.
David Álvarez Díez (1927-2015): owner of the Eulen Group.
Juan-Miguel Villar Mir: former Minister of Finance and then owner of the construction company OHL.
The Spanish newspaper states that the investigation concludes that "there were many multimillionaires who participated in the rise of the Spanish ultra-right".
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