(C) OpenDemocracy This story was originally published by OpenDemocracy and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . A dying baby, a Trump tweet: Inside network setting global right-wing agenda [1] [] Date: 2024-03 Charlie Gard was just two months old when he was admitted to London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital with breathing difficulties in October 2016. He would remain there up until the day before his death in July 2017, when the High Court ruled – against the wishes of his parents – that his life support machine should be switched off as the brain damage caused by his rare genetic disorder was too severe for any hope of successful treatment. Gard’s case captured the attention of Agenda Europe, a network of more than 400 ultra-conservatives, who had spent the previous four years working together to oppose abortion, equal marriage, divorce and contraception, and had links to the Kremlin, Donald Trump and far-right MPs across Europe. One member of Agenda Europe emailed others to encourage them to target the British authorities and the hospital, a month before doctors switched off Gard’s life support. Three weeks after the call for action, the Metropolitan Police was forced to launch an investigation into a torrent of death threats and abuse targeted at the hospital staff, including on social media. Another member, Gregor Puppinck, of the European Centre for Law and Justice, responded to the email by Toni Brandi, of Italian anti-abortion organisation Pro Vita, to reassure members that his organisation had sent the case right to the top of the United States’ government. Get our free Daily Email Get one whole story, direct to your inbox every weekday. Sign up now The centre’s chief counsel, Jay Sekulow, had “intervened with Trump” on Gard’s case, Puppinck’s email said. That same day, in July 2017, then-US president went on to tweet that he wanted to help the British infant – an unusual step for a head of state in another country. Trump’s office did not respond to openDemocracy’s request for comment. These leaked emails are just two of thousands exchanged between Agenda Europe members that have been seen by openDemocracy and a small group of European journalists. They reveal for the first time how US, Russian and European anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ+ activists and politicians were in constant contact, offering support on local and national campaigns. The group’s actions include campaigning on referendums that successfully prevented equal marriage rights, challenging calls to end gender-based violence, and influencing the rise of anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ+ feelings and policy-making in multiple European countries. As the following shows, these emails illustrate the emergence of a coherent and organised counter-narrative to the liberal world-view that was, until recently, generally espoused by an increasing number of democracies around the world. Agenda Europe, and its successor, Vision Network, served as a gathering place where conservative thought in its many disparate strands came together into a coherent worldview. Austrian MP Gudrun Kugler, one of several elected politicians active in the network, told openDemocracy: “It is democratically legitimate to be pro-life, even if you personally disagree. It is democratically legitimate to connect with others who call themselves pro-life.” Less than a year after Gard’s death, members had honed in on the tragic case of another seriously ill British toddler, Alfie Evans, whose parents were in legal battles to continue his treatment against the advice of doctors. Staff members at Spanish anti-gender advocacy group CitizenGO weighed in. Eszter Zaymus-Schittil, the group’s campaigns director in Hungary, urged members to sign its petition to support the Evans family, while its founder Ignacio Arsuaga said the British state saw Evans as their “property”. CitizenGO did not respond to our request for comment. Other Agenda Europe emails asked members to look into the political backgrounds of the judges who would be ruling on Evans’ case. Aleksander Stepkowski of Poland’s Catholic legal organisation Ordo Iuris responded by claiming, without any evidence, that one justice, Anthony Hayden, was an “LGBT activist”. Members often used racist and homophobic language when discussing UK issues. Other emails theorised on how women who had abortions should be punished, or praised Russian President Vladimir Putin’s laws that de-facto decriminalised domestic abuse in Russia. Catholic influencer Edmund Adamus wrote to the group to warn that the UK had become “Eurabia” following news that a Christian NHS worker lost her appeal after being found guilty by her employer of “harassing and bullying” a Muslim colleague. Adamus told openDemocracy that he “was aware” of Agenda Europe’s activities but “not involved in any official capacity.” He said he “does not recall” the email mentioned or the exchange. Luca Volontè, a CitizenGO board member and the founder of Italian anti-abortion organisation Novae Terrae Foundation, replied on the same thread, saying that the “agloarabian [sic] spirit will infect all Europe” and it is “infecting UK court decisions”. Other members labelled LGBTQ+ people as “sodomites” who were pursuing a “lifestyle” choice, and claimed gender studies is “Cultural Marxist propaganda designed to subvert culture”. Cultural Marxism is a term closely associated with far-right, antisemitic conspiracy theories. One of the coordinators of the network was ADF International, the European arm of the US-based Alliance Defending Freedom, designated as a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Centre for their relentless campaigning against LGBTQ+ rights. When ADF International’s Laurence Wilkinson emailed the group asking for observations about the UK lawyers standing to become judges on the European Court of Human Rights, one member accused one candidate of being part of the “homo lobby”, a term frequently deployed. International collaboration The network offered a space for activists, lawyers and academics to collaborate with politicians in order to achieve their anti-gender aims. This included offering advice to political figures from Eastern Europe on how to prevent the ratification of the Istanbul Convention to tackle men’s violence against women. Members celebrated when Latvia and Bulgaria did not ratify the convention. Irish Catholic activists, meanwhile, sought advice on how to shape Ireland’s abortion laws after it was decriminalised in 2018. The same year, CitizenGO’s Arsuaga asked for information on Poland’s abortion laws, which are among the strictest in Europe, as “there is a political party that wants to study these Polish laws to use them to approach abortion zero” in Spain. CitizenGO, which counted many of its staff among Agenda Europe members, works closely with Spain’s far-right VOX party, which wants to ban abortion. Emails criticised openDemocracy’s previous reporting on the network’s members, including the close relationship between Spain’s CitizenGO and VOX. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/inside-the-network-setting-global-right-wing-agenda/ Published and (C) by OpenDemocracy Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-ND 4.0. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/opendemocracy/