Month: June 2023

The BBC has failed to respond to allegations of spreading fake news on its new disinformation division’s flagship podcast Marianna in Conspiracyland.

The BBC was given several opportunities to respond to allegations of fake news but, at the time of writing, has not. The claims concern alleged fake news spread by Disinformation and Social Media correspondent Marianna Spring about former UKIP MEP candidate and host of the Lotus Eaters podcast, Carl Benjamin.

In the very first instalment of BBC Radio 4’s Marianna in Conspiracyland podcast, which detailed the supposed radicalisation of people in the sleepy town of Totnes in Western England, Spring falsely claimed that Benjamin’s YouTube channel Sargon of Akkad is currently suspended by the platform. Although the British conservative political commentator is currently more active on his Lotus Eaters channel, his original YouTube channel is not blocked and is still occasionally used by Benjamin. The channel was reportedly demonetised by YouTube in 2019.

Spring then claimed that Mr Benjamin had travelled to Totnes as a part of his campaign for the European Parliament in 2019 with former Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos. Although Yiannopoulos did appear with Benjamin in the town of Truro during the campaign, a four-hour live stream of the event in Totnes filmed by Benjamin does not show Yiannopoulos at the event in question.

The BBC’s disinformation correspondent went on to interview a Green Party councillor in Totnes, Georgina Allen, who claimed that “a year after the pandemic” Mr Benjamin returned to Totnes, at which point, she claims, half of the people who previously protested against him during his UKIP campaign “were now with him because they had been recruited into his way of thinking”.

However, Mr Benjamin firmly denies that he has ever returned to Totnes and there does not appear to be any corroborating evidence online of him making a second appearance in the small town.

The former UKIP candidate also denied allegations made by Spring that he had made “rape threats”, which as he noted on his Lotus Eaters podcast this week, is a criminal offence in England and therefore would have resulted in criminal charges if police determined that he had made such a threat.

It is likely that Spring was referencing a controversial joke made by Benjamin about Labour MP Jess Phillips, whom he said he “wouldn’t even rape”. Tactless as the joke may have been, there was a police investigation and no charges were ever brought forward.

Benjamin also refuted claims made by the BBC Verify correspondent of “engagement with white supremacists”, an assertion which she did not support with evidence in her podcast.

The Lotus Eaters host said that in response to the alleged disinformation spread about him, he had filed complaints with broadcasting regulator Ofcom and the BBC.

In a statement provided to Breitbart London, Mr Benjamin said: “I’m rather shocked about all of this, to be honest. Not that the BBC would lie about me or anyone else, but about the scale and brazenness of the lie. Usually, they lie by omission, which allows them to use literal truths to tell an untrue story by excluding key facts which change the character of the tale. This allows for a degree of plausible deniability.

“However, in this case, they have completely fabricated an event for which there is no evidence. When I was on my MEP tour in Totnes, there were hours of video evidence. The protesters acted disgracefully, while the regular folk engaged in rigorous debate.

“The BBC claimed I had since returned to Totnes and had succeeded in radicalising half the town. This second visit never occurred; I have not been to Totnes since and there was no mass demonstration there in my favour. Nor would they be radicals if there had been.

“The BBC has invented a boogeyman to sustain a fever dream narrative on a subject about which many reasonable people have many reasonable concerns.

“I think they’re doing this deliberately to invalidate these reasonable concerns by unfairly painting anyone who holds them as some kind of extremist. I don’t think that’s appropriate.”

Despite being accused of spreading disinformation on the very podcast meant to dispel disinformation, the BBC and Marianna Spring have failed to respond to multiple emails from Breitbart London. Rather than engage on social media with the allegations from Mr Benjamin, Spring apparently blocked him on Twitter and claimed that her podcast had gained the attention of “trolls“.

Spring, whose upcoming book is entitled Among the Trolls: Notes From the Disinformation Wars, previously broke down in tears during an interview with the BBC about her experiences with being trolled on the internet, including allegedly by Twitter boss Elon Musk.

The millennial BBC correspondent, who cut her teeth on supposedly exposing anti-vaccine content, has seen a quick rise through the ranks of the legacy media. Spring was listed on Forbes’s ‘30 under 30‘ media list for Europe in 2021 and is now the face of the BBC’s “Verify’ disinformation unit.

Following the launch of the division, the public broadcaster received heavy criticism, with many questioning if the left-liberal public broadcaster had the credibility to run such a fact-checking project. Spring responded to the backlash by blaming it on “trolls” and saying that comments on social media demonstrated the need for the BBC’s disinformation division.

In comments to Breitbart London, the head of Britain’s oldest conservative think tank, Bow Group Chairman Ben Harris-Quinney said: “Using criticism to justify publicly-funded investigations reads like a parody of a totalitarian regime.”

“The fact that Spring and the BBC appear to have done this with no sense of irony or self-awareness of how inappropriate these approaches are, for what is supposed to be an unbiased publicly funded media institution, shows how deep the rot is.”

Thirty-one-year-old Valdo Calocane was charged with the murders of 19-year-old students Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar and school janitor Ian Coates, who were stabbed to death Tuesday in Nottingham.

Two 19-year-old students, Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar, and a 65-year-old school employee, Ian Coates, were stabbed in the attack early Tuesday morning. Three other people were injured when they were run over by the stolen van, causing a commotion in the city and beyond.

Jason, a 50-year-old eyewitness, commented, “The man was dressed all in black and very calm. He was wearing a cap and had a backpack on his back”.

Translated with DeepL

https://resistancerepublicaine.com/2023/06/17/la-premiere-photo-de-lauteur-du-triple-meurtre-de-nottingham/

A district court in Pankow, Germany, refused custody of Ariha Shah, a 28-month-old Indian girl, to her biological parents and handed her to Jugendamt, the German juvenile services in two separate judgments on June 13.

The court rejected Dhara and Bhavesh Shah’s request to have the child returned to them directly or, at the very least, given to a third party, the Indian Welfare Services, and instead handed over the child to Jugendamt. It ruled, “The parents are no longer authorised to decide on the whereabouts of their child.”

The court declared that the Central Youth Welfare Office of Berlin would be responsible for making decisions regarding her whereabouts while acting as her temporary guardian. The parents had first requested her custody, but they later withdrew the motion.

Following that, they asked that full parental custody be restored and that she be delivered to the Indian Welfare Services, with the understanding that she would then be sent to Ashok Jain’s foster home in Ahmedabad. The parents also intended to relocate to India with her.

The court cited two injuries on the head and back that Ariha Shah endured in April 2021 that occurred while she was being washed and a genital injury in September of the same year in refusing custody to her parents or the Indian Welfare Services.

It maintained that in order to “avert the existing danger to the child,” parental care ought to be refused. It further stated that the parents were unable to “explain the events in question in a sufficiently consistent manner” and it reached the conclusion “that the mother and/or father (had) intentionally caused the serious genital injuries to the child.”

The parents already have “the right and duty” to visitation twice each month, “on the first and third Tuesday of each month for 60 minutes (of) accompanied contact,” per the district court’s order. The former requested supervised visitation with their daughter once every two days for 90 minutes in their visitation petition.

However, their plea was rejected noting that while maintaining contact with her parents was necessary for Ariha Shah to have a consistent image of them as she grows, “the development of a bond was no longer in the foreground.”

In order to “not cause any additional irritations in the child’s experience,” it was also underlined that the contact frequency shouldn’t be altered. The court decision pronounced that the child should be given time to develop a bond with her foster parents and that any change in visitation frequency or duration could have “a disturbing effect” on her.

Arindam Bagchi, a spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs, pleaded with the German government on June 3 “to do all necessary to send Ariha to India as soon as possible, which is also her inalienable right as an Indian national.”

In a letter to the German ambassador to India, Philipp Ackermann, earlier in June, 59 members of Parliament representing 19 political parties, including the Bharatiya Janata Party, Congress, the Left, and the Trinamool Congress asked him to take all necessary steps to facilitate the little girl’s return to India as soon as possible.

After the court verdict, the parents flew from Berlin to New Delhi on June 15 to request that the Indian authorities seek Ariha Shah’s repatriation because she is an Indian citizen. Bhavesh Shah voiced, “We plan to appeal in a higher court in Germany but have little hope of getting a fair trial. We were expecting a verdict like this. They did not opine on the reports of experts who defended us, and just gave a one-sided verdict.”

The couple has made a request for Ariha Shah’s return to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). They asserted they had no idea if the Jugendamt would allow visits once she turned three. “And once we lose visitation, if we want to bring her back to India, Ariha herself may not remember us or understand what India is and may refuse to come back. The visitation that has been allowed now is supposed to apply until Ariha settles in with her new foster parents,” Dhara Shah added.

Ariha Shah, the daughter of a Jain couple Bhavesh and Dhara Shah was 7 months old when she was separated from her parents by the authorities of the Germany Child Care Institute after the baby was accidentally hurt by her grandmother. 20 months have passed since then but she has not been returned to her parents.

“Our visitations with Ariha since October 2021 were supervised by a social worker. We constantly received good reports from the social worker. As of September 2022, the social worker observed that the visitations were going well and that they may be increased. Relying on those reports, in September 2022, we went to the family court requesting that the frequency of our visitations should be increased to at least twice a week, but Jugendamt opposed the plea,” Bhavesh reportedly told Indian Express on June 8.

https://www.opindia.com/2023/06/german-court-baby-ariha-custody-pleas-indian-parents/

Unconfirmed reports suggest that eight Pakistan nationals have been arrested in Greece for plotting terror attacks. The arrests have once again brought the spotlight back on Pakistan which has been the main spreader of jihadist terrorism across the globe.

In Europe, jihadist terrorism emerged only in the 1990s. In many European countries, awareness of this new development took some time. In fact, the threat posed by jihadist terrorism was underestimated, overlooked, and often misunderstood.

Of all different kinds of political-religious terrorism, transnational jihadist terrorism is the most threatening one to western values, interests and societies. This form of terrorism is the product of a combination of Islamist ideology and the idea of the jihad.

In this regard, Pakistan origin terrorists have been at the forefront in executing this form of terrorism. In September 2020, Europe felt a sudden jolt when arrest warrants were issued for fourteen Pakistanis in Italy in connection with the terrorist attack on the Charlie Hebdo office in Paris.

It confirmed the growing presence of Pakistani radicals in Europe.

In December 2020, French authorities arrested four more Pakistani nationals who had prior knowledge of the attack. Ever since, Pakistani terror supporters have been under a constant watch in the UK, Spain, Italy, France and Germany.

In another incident of Pakistan origin terrorists planning a terror attack on European soil, Greek police arrested two Pakistani nationals in March 2023 who were allegedly planning mass-casualty terrorist attacks against Israeli and Jewish targets in the country.

Reports indicated that the target was a Chabad House, which includes a Kosher restaurant and also hosts other religious services. Their aim was not only to cause the loss of life of innocent citizens, but also to undermine the sense of security in the country, while hurting public institutions and threatening Greece’s international relations.

An analysis of the seized information and digital data revealed and confirmed that the members of the network had already chosen a building of special importance as the target of the attack, carried out the reconnaissance of the area and received final instructions to carry out the attack.

Following further investigations into the March 2023 terror plot, unconfirmed sources claim that eight more Pakistani nationals have been arrested in June 2023. All of them supposedly belong to Sargodha area of Pakistan.

These arrests underline that the spike in illegal migration of radical Pakistanis to Greece has only undermined the security concerns of the country.

Pakistan has often been accused by various countries, including its neighbors as well as by the United States and European countries like Germany and France of involvement in a variety of terrorist activities in both its local region of South Asia and beyond.

It is high time that countries across the globe strengthen their immigration regulations to block illegal entry of Pakistan nationals that are perceived as a threat to national identity, domestic security and the social fabric of the recipient countries.

https://greekcitytimes.com/2023/06/13/eight-pakistan-nationals-arrested/

What is happening in the Netherlands? It is often difficult to follow events in other countries, especially when distorted by system media. We give Forum for Democracy (FvD) the opportunity to speak out on the political situation in the Netherlands and the staunch resistance they face in trying to save the country.

We recently interviewed two representatives of the FvD: Massimo Etalle, editor-in-chief of De Dissident newspaper and deputy chairman of the party’s youth association, and Frederik Jansen, a member of the FvD in the Dutch Parliament.

FvD is fairly new in Dutch politics, the party was founded in 2016, but has grown quickly and today boasts the most members and the largest youth wing in the Netherlands. The youth wing, JFvD, was established in 2017 when FvD was elected to parliament, amassing 1,000 members in a single day. Currently, the party as a whole has 61,000 members, being nearly twice the size of the second-largest PvdA. JFvD is the biggest political youth organization in the country.

I the latest parliament elections in 2021, the FvD was supported by 5 per cent of the voters.

“I’m no politician”

The FvD’s membership numbers reflect a fundamental difference in their approach, opting to build a community rather than merely chase votes. The party values action above all else, deliberately distancing itself from those who pursue politics for personal gain. “We cannot live that way,” says Frederik Jansen.

During the conversation, Massimo Etalle is quick to dismiss the term politician, stating firmly, “I’m no politician.” Although engaged in politics, FvD members fundamentally reject the typical characteristics associated with politicians.

“We were founded to preserve European civilization, and there is no place for those who believe participation is more important than winning; it is not,” Etalle clarifies.

For FvD and JFvD leadership, idealism, rather than stale conference room discussions, should be the driving force behind political involvement. They both underline that this idealism has helped to save the party during troubled times, especially during the oppressive covid restrictions.

Harsh oppressions during covid

The FvD was initially in favor of a lockdown in the Netherlands but revised their position after examining data that showed the infection curve had already begun to flatten at an early stage. As the party resumed meetings without any health issues arising, they became increasingly critical of the government’s tightening restrictions, particularly concerning the experimental vaccines.

Their stance on covid vaccines led to substantial difficulties for FvD members. Lacking QR codes as proof of vaccination, they were barred from entering public places such as restaurants, libraries, and sports events. For the first time since World War II, the Netherlands imposed a curfew, and people were unable to venture out after 9 pm.

The party’s Facebook account, which once regularly reached 1 million people and up to 4 million during campaigns, now only reached 50,000. Frederik Jansen’s private Twitter account became impossible to tag for several months until he agreed to archive all posts critical of the covid vaccine.

The social reactions were perhaps the most alarming.

“We realized that unvaccinated people could be banned from family Christmas dinners just because someone on TV said so; it was a true reality check,” shares Massimo Etalle.

Ironically, the vaccinated were afraid of the vaccine free, although the very reason to get vaccinated was that it was supposed to protect you.

This experience led FvD to become increasingly distrustful of the authorities and prompted them to seek alternative ways to organize. With their indomitable spirit and organizational connections, the party effectively circumvented and defied the bans. They rented buses with fold-out stages for public meetings and organized a large Christmas market on private land. During this time, an app was developed to connect like-minded entrepreneurs and create an internal market relatively free from the threat of political boycotts and shutdowns. However, the memory of the oppression still lingers and continues to shape the party’s policies today.

The Nitrogen Program: A Facade for Mass Urbanization

One particularly perplexing issue in the Netherlands is the farmer protests following the government’s policy of expropriating agricultural land, ostensibly for ”environmental purposes” to reduce nitrogen emissions from farms, primarily livestock. Food is the Netherlands’ largest export, and despite its small size, the country is one of the world’s largest food exporters, rivaling the United States and China. After the country’s Supreme Administrative Court rejected the government’s plans to limit nitrogen emissions in 2019, a law was introduced to reduce Dutch farmers’ environmental impact and, according to the government, allow domestic nature to develop. The goal is to halve nitrogen emissions by 2030 through expropriation of farmers’ land and dismantling family-owned agriculture, either with compensation or, as FvD representatives warn, by force. The government claims this aligns with the EU’s climate goals, but the Netherlands actually imposes abnormally high requirements. For instance, Germany allowed 21 times higher nitrogen emissions from new agricultural installations even before the Netherlands’ new emission law.

The Dutch “minister for environment and nitrogen”, Christianne van der Wal, has said that she wants to get rid of 30 per cent of the country’s cattle farms. In reality it will be much more, the farmers fear.

Food products are Netherlands’s biggest export business and although occupying such a small area on the planet, the country is one the worlds biggest exporters of food, in parity with the US and China. The government now demands that nitrogen emissions be halved by 2030. They openly talk about expropriating the farmer’s land for some compensation if they will not comply with the new nitrogen requirements. The FvD thinks that this is just a start, and that the government will resort to taking the farms by force.

Many farmers find it absurd that they should be evicted from land often owned for generations, and these plans have ignited significant anger among what is in the Netherlands a resourceful group. In 2022, several major farmer protests were highlighted, having gone on since 2019. Roads and government buildings were blocked to force the government to reverse its expropriation plans, and the anger was reflected in election results.

In the 2023 provincial elections, the newly founded farmer’s party BBB won a landslide victory, receiving the most votes in every province. Early in the debate, opinion polls showed an increase for FvD, which had actively supported farmers’ rights to their land, but media censorship during the pandemic made it difficult to inform voters about this.

Frederik Jansen points out that BBB will never solve the problem because they have accepted the false premises imposed by the establishment. They accept the false theory of nitrogen emissions and openly advocate policies that only lead to a delay in expropriations and possibly better compensation for farmers, not stopping them.

“The reason is not environmental protection; they want the land to build wind turbines and housing for immigrants,” Massimo explains, which is precisely what has already happened on expropriated land in the Flevoland province.

Furthermore, he adds that ”the truth is that farmers’ land is worth ten times as much if you build houses on it, and the Netherlands has a huge housing crisis. Last year the population grew by 2 pre cent solely due to immigration, and during the height of the housing crisis, 400,000 people arrived here.”

Whether it is genuinely more environmentally friendly to build housing for hundreds of thousands of people one chooses to accommodate rather than run family-owned agriculture is seems dubious.

The First Political Ban Since World War II?

Not since World War II has a political party been banned in the Netherlands, and it is currently impossible to do so. However, several associations have been banned, such as Vereniging Martijn, which aimed to legalize and normalize pedophilia, and the Hells Angels motorcycle gang. After FvD positioned itself uncomfortably against the establishment on several important issues, they may now end up on the same list.

At the end of 2022, Democrats 66, part of the Dutch coalition government, proposed a law that would make it possible to ban political parties on grounds such as “undermining the democratic order.” FvD believes that this attempt almost explicitly targets their party, which would not have been possible under previous legislation. When the law is not enough to silence a democratically represented party, the Democrats propose simply changing the law.

Even if this proposal were to pass and a point were reached where FvD was banned, both the parties’ representatives we met emphasized that it would be ineffective.

“Banning the opposition will not reduce the divide in society, and that divide creates the very threats the ban is based on,” says Massimo, further explaining that instead, they should examine themselves and investigate why people hold the opinions that the establishment is so afraid of. One cannot stop an idea by trying to suppress it, and a ban on such vague grounds would only show even more how right FvD is.

https://freewestmedia.com/2023/06/17/dutch-fvd-break-through-the-media-blockade/

For days, the police in the German Ruhr area have been on red alert: In several cities, Syrian and Lebanese family clans with up to 100 members have been attacking each other with machetes. The cause was a trivial dispute over a child.

The mass brawl incidents started last Thursday in Castrop-Rauxel, 30 kilometres from the city of Essen in North Rhine-Westphalia. There, two families arranged to “have a discussion” via Facebook. It was preceded by an everyday situation. A Lebanese man had reprimanded an Afghan child from the neighbourhood for making noise.

At the appointed time, 80 men suddenly appeared in the car park of a supermarket for the “discussion”. Eyewitnesses filmed when suddenly they started fist fights and the first members of the clan families pulled out knives and attacked each other. After only a few minutes, a first victim lay on the ground covered in blood, but the brawl became more and more brutal. The Syrian and Lebanese opponents even attacked each other with machetes.

The result of the first clash: seven injured, two of them seriously, and one Syrian (23) in mortal danger due to a stab wound to the abdomen. But that did not seem to suffice for the families. They met again the next day. Again, up to 80 men attacked each other in Castrop-Rauxel. At the same time, the dispute between the two migrant clans spread to the city of Essen.

Nach Massenschlägerei zwischen Großfamilien mit lebensgefährlich Verletzten in #CastropRauxel aktuell Großeinsatz der #Polizei in #Essen! Offenbar wollten sich knapp 500 Libanesen und Syrer prügeln, Einsatzkräfte konnten das in letzter Sekunde verhindern! #migrationskrise pic.twitter.com/g7WlTmAPoa

— Frank Schneider (@chefreporterNRW) June 16, 2023

Firearms and machetes seized
Several hundred people clashed in the city centre, the police were called out, and a helicopter circled over the city. 116 participants in the violent confrontation were checked, some of them temporarily arrested. Firearms, knives and machetes were seized during the search of 24 vehicles.

In the meantime, North Rhine-Westphalia’s Prime Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) has announced tougher action against the foreign family clans.

https://exxpress.at/syrer-und-libanesen-blutige-strassenschlachten-mit-macheten/

“Strategic Destruction”- Whistleblower Alleges Bud Light Executives Put Dylan Mulvaney’s Face on Cans to Destroy the Company and Presents a Strong Theory Why They Wanted Bud Light to Fail https://t.co/JIgsGydMFc

— The Gateway Pundit (@gatewaypundit) June 16, 2023

By Monica Showalter

When we talk banana republics, it’s not just throwing one’s political opponents in jail ahead of election time. It’s not solely a falling currency and high inflation. It’s not purely threats, mobs, and gang warfare on elected leaders. Nor is it the emerging presence of shantytowns, brought on by unregulated human migration. 

It’s corruption, massive, massive, corruption, the kind that brings to mind Mobotu, Marcos, Saddam Hussein, Gadhafi, Castro, Hugo Chavez, and Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings, all of whom died with vast fortunes and an unexplained means of acquiring it.

Sadly, as Biden prepares to throw his political opponent, Donald Trump, in jail for 400 years on an unprecedented documents-mishandling charge, we have reports of vast corruption rolling out about his money activities from Congress.

According to the New York Post:

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer on Thursday teased that new bank records his panel expects to obtain will reveal that the Biden family has accepted as much as $30 million from foreign nationals.

“We have more bank records coming in, we’re going to exceed $10 million this week. And I think we’ll get up to between $20 and 30 million,” Comer (R-Ky.) told Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo when asked how much money the committee has identified as being obtained by President Biden’s family members from overseas sources. 

Something is going on. Comer wouldn’t say that if he didn’t have a pretty good idea about what the records would reveal, having been on the case for months.

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas is also on the case.

According to Breitbart News:

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) demanded President Joe Biden disclose the “mystery source” who paid him and his wife about $10 million in 2017, the year he left the vice presidency.

In the wake of Joe Biden allegedly accepting a $5 million bribe from the founder of Burisma, Mykola Zlochevsky — who allegedly kept 17 audio recordings of his conversations with Joe and Hunter Biden as an “insurance policy” — Cruz raised concerns about Joe and Jill Biden’s entities that raked in millions in 2017.

“You’re looking at a tax return that has $10 million in cash that came from a mystery source,” Cruz said on his podcast, Verdict with Ted Cruz.

He continued:

Now let’s look at the timing here. The whistleblower says when he was vice president, a senior executive at Burisma offered him $5 million cash personally in order to make a corrupt deal and make official decisions for Burisma. The year he leaves the vice presidency in 2017, he reported over $10 million of income in two corporations that he and his wife set up, and we know nothing, zero whatsoever about the source of that income.

Cruz said the House should demand transparency from Joe Biden about who exactly paid the entities.

When have we ever heard of figures like $30 million being bruited about in a U.S. corruption case? Most career-ruining corruption cases involve $10,000, $20,000, $50,000 amounts. Characters like Muhammad Nuru of San Francisco, Mark Ridley-Thomas and Jose Huizar, and Rep. Duncan Hunter of San Diego all went down for these kinds of amounts.

Potential corruption with these kinds of numbers normally only turns up in cases involving tinpot dictators held before the International Court of Justice in The Hague. We’ve never seen these kinds of numbes associated with a U.S. president, or even the corruptest Chicago ward heeler pol.

If Comer finds what he thinks he’s going to find, we will see corruption on a scale never before seen in U.S. politics. 

And all the while, the media is treating it as a yawner, a non-story.

Not only could Joe Biden govern like a dictator, he could also be stealing like a dictator.

What have we come to?

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/06/banana_republic_thirty_emmillionem_for_the_big_guy.html

In a surprising turn of events, the highly anticipated blockbuster movie “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” has been unexpectedly removed from cinema listings in over a dozen Muslim-majority countries. The decision appears to be linked to a transgender poster that briefly appears in the background of one frame, which has sparked controversy and led to the film’s withdrawal. Empire Entertainment, the Middle East distributor for the animated Sony Pictures film, has not provided any official explanation for this move despite multiple inquiries.

The movie was released in the US, India, and several other countries on June 2, and was scheduled to open in several Arab countries on June 22.

Although no explicit bans on the film have been announced, it is evident that “Across the Spider-Verse” will not be screened in several Muslim countries. According to reports, a source close to the film, who preferred to remain anonymous, stated that the United Arab Emirates, known for its strict censorship of movies targeting children and younger viewers, does not anticipate the film’s release.

Furthermore, the official Saudi Cinema Twitter account posted a statement along with a movie poster, affirming that the organization will not approve any film that violates the nation’s media content regulations or fails to comply with required amendments by production companies.

The Twitter handle of Saudi Cinema posted, “Out of our keenness on the safety of the content shown in cinemas, and our responsibility towards the viewers, we would like to point out that we will not permit or license any film that contradicts the content controls in force in the media system and it’s implementing regulations unless the production companies commit to implementing the required amendments.”

من حرصنا على سلامة المحتوى المعروض في صالات السينما، ومسؤوليتنا تجاه المشاهدين، نود التنويه بأننا لن نقوم بفسح وإجازة أي فيلم يتعارض مع ضوابط المحتوى المعمول بها في نظام الإعلام #المرئي_والمسموع ولائحته التنفيذية، ما لم تلتزم شركات الإنتاج بتنفيذ التعديلات المطلوبة. https://t.co/BVCBvN9SHV

— السينما السعودية (@alcinema_sa) June 13, 2023

The decision to pull the movie from theatres came just days before its scheduled release on June 22, in time for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha. Initial listings included countries such as Kuwait, the UAE, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Egypt, but the film was quietly removed from their cinema programs without any official reasons provided. The inclusion of a brief transgender reference in the film may have caused offence in Arab countries where Islamic law, or Sharia, and societal norms consider homosexuality and transgender identity as contrary to religious beliefs.

The controversial scene in question depicts a transgender flag bearing the message “Protect Trans Kids,” displayed in the room of Gwen Stacy, a spider superhero voiced by actress Hailee Steinfeld.

It is worth noting that the UAE, known for its modern metropolis Dubai and iconic skyscrapers, has not officially banned the film. The federation of seven sheikhdoms had previously announced an end to film censorship in an effort to promote itself as a liberal and cosmopolitan destination. However, the UAE has occasionally chosen to withhold specific movies from its theatres.

Emaar Entertainment, the parent company of major UAE cinema company Reel Cinemas, confirmed that they will not be screening “Across the Spider-Verse.” The decision was attributed to Empire Entertainment, the exclusive theatrical distributor for Sony Pictures movies in the Middle East. Multiple attempts to reach Empire Entertainment, the UAE Ministry of Youth and Culture, and the Saudi Ministry of Communications and Information Technology for comment were unsuccessful.

This incident recalls a similar occurrence last year when Disney’s “Lightyear” faced bans in thirteen Muslim-majority countries due to a scene featuring a lesbian kiss. Although the scene had been initially removed from the film, it was later restored following protests by Pixar employees against Disney’s response to a controversial legislation in Florida dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is a computer-animated movie featuring the Marvel character Spiderman. The prequel to “Across the Spider-Verse,” titled “Into the Spider-Verse,” enjoyed a successful run in the region upon its release in 2018. The film “Across the Spider-Verse” serves as the second instalment in a trilogy, with the final chapter set to release in regional cinemas next year.

https://www.opindia.com/2023/06/spider-man-across-the-spider-verse-pulled-down-before-its-release-in-several-muslim-majority-countries/

Ep. 4 Wannabe Dictator pic.twitter.com/MDcs5g0gxB

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) June 15, 2023

MUST WATCH: Tucker Carlson Takes the Gloves Off in Episode 4 : Joe Biden, the Wannabe Dictator https://t.co/UJ9in2fKZA

— The Gateway Pundit (@gatewaypundit) June 15, 2023