Category: International

Câteva zile de tulburări în orașul Torre Pacheco, lângă Murcia, au scos în evidență tensiunile crescânde legate de migrație în Spania.

Pensionarul Domingo Tomas Martinez, în vârstă de șaizeci și opt de ani, a declarat că a fost bătut de migranți pe 9 iulie. Motivul atacului nu a fost imediat clar. Acesta a fost însă urmat de mai multe nopți de revolte și proteste violente. Grupurile de extremă dreapta au postat mesaje xenofobe pe rețelele de socializare, cerând oamenilor să „vâneze” migranții. Acest lucru a escaladat și mai mult tensiunile.

Torre Pacheco este un oraș de coastă spaniol cu aproape 40.000 de locuitori, iar o treime din populația sa este formată din migranți, conform datelor administrației locale. Poliția susține că, până acum, pacea a fost în mare parte restabilită în oraș după atac. Dar acesta este un alt exemplu despre cum dezinformarea poate aprinde emoții.

Videoclipul scos din context pune paie pe foc

Afirmație:Această postare X cu videoclipul, din 10 iulie, afirmă: „A fost scurs un videoclip despre un atac brutal asupra unui bărbat în vârstă de către nord-africani în Torre-Pacheco, Murcia.”

Postarea provine de la un utilizator cu o bifă aurie pe contul său X, indicând faptul că respectivul cont aparține unei organizații oficiale prin intermediul unor organizații verificate. Și alte conturi au distribuit videoclipul susținând că acesta arată atacul asupra lui Martinez.

Verificare DW: Fals

Acest videoclip a circulat pe scară largă pe rețelele de socializare, dar nu a arătat incidentul din Torre Pacheco.Imagine: X

Videoclipul nu este de la Torre Pacheco. Este legat de un incident care a avut loc acum aproape două luni și a fost filmat în orașul Almeria, la peste 200 de kilometri distanță.

Persoana care apare în videoclip este Jose Moya. După ce videoclipul a devenit viral în iulie, Moya a postat declarația sa pe Instagram, clarificând că persoana care apare în videoclipul viral este, de fapt, el. Presa locală l-a intervievat după ce videoclipul viral a stârnit indignare pe rețelele de socializare împotriva migranților.

Moya a arătat, de asemenea, pe Instagram tricoul și pantalonii pe care le-a purtat în ziua atacului. Cerând dreptate, el a spus: „Cel din videoclip sunt eu. Îmi este greu să fac acest videoclip pentru că sunt foarte nervos. Dar ei devin confuzi. Și ceea ce vreau să spun este că cer dreptate pentru tot ce mi-au făcut mie și bătrânului. Bătrânul este un bărbat din Murcia, iar eu sunt din Almeria. Eu am fost cel care a fost bătut.”

El a explicat că două persoane l-au atacat în timp ce mai erau prezente. El a spus că i-au cerut tutun, iar când a răspuns că nu are, „S-au luat la bătaie cu mine (…). Mi-au tăiat capul, mi-au rupt trei coaste și m-au lăsat acolo inconștient.” El a susținut că atacatorii erau spanioli, nu migranți.

Martinez confirmă că bărbatul din videoclip nu este el

DW Fact Check a putut confirma că scena din videoclip a fost filmată în Almeria, așa cum a susținut Jose Moya în postarea sa de pe Instagram. De asemenea, a arătat o fotografie a locației făcută după incident, care este inclusă în declarația sa video. Am geolocalizat-o lângă spitalul Centro Periferico de Especialidades (Bola Azul). Filmările se potrivesc cu detalii precum un rând de copaci, graffiti și alte suprafețe similare.

Domingo Tomas Martinez, bărbatul bătut în Torre Pacheco, a confirmat, de asemenea, că nu apare în videoclipul care a devenit viral. El a vorbit cu mai multe agenții media în urma incidentului, unde a apărut cu ochii roșii și alte urme de agresiune.

Geolocalizarea orașului Almeria, unde a avut loc incidentul în mai 2025Imagine: Google 2025

Alte afirmații false care se răspândesc online

Postări similare înșelătoare au apărut în urma cazului din Murcia, multe vizând migranți și musulmani. Iată două exemple:

Afirmație: Această postare despre X susține că poliția locală din Torre Pacheco a fost atacată de migranți și că Garda Civilă nu a intervenit: „Poliția locală din Torre Pacheco, copleșită de mulțimea de oameni cu părul în formă de broccoli.”

Vezi mai multe știri aici

Acest videoclip nu arată migranți atacând poliția în Torre PachecoImagine: X

Verificare DW: Fals

Acest incident a avut loc în Torrevieja, la aproximativ 40 de kilometri de Torre Pacheco. Mai multe agenții media locale au relatat că ofițerii de poliție au fost atacați acolo de mai multe persoane de origine migrantă. DW a verificat și a identificat locația videoclipului.

Afirmație: O altă postare susținea că a fost organizat un „protest al șuncii” ca răspuns la incidentul de la Torre Pacheco. Legenda spune: „Torre Pacheco se trezește devreme. Locuitorii se organizează pentru contraatacul final”.

Verificare DW: Fals

Acest videoclip nu are nicio legătură cu Torre Pacheco. Imagine: X

Acest videoclip nu are legătură. A fost postat pentru prima dată în noiembrie 2024 pe X de către un utilizator care spunea că este o încercare de a stabili un record mondial pentru cea mai mare farfurie cu șuncă. Videoclipul a fost filmat în Huelva și a fost vizionat de peste 2,4 milioane de ori de atunci.

De ce este important

Dezinformarea nu este doar o greșeală inofensivă: poate declanșa violență, poate alimenta ura și pune vieți în pericol, așa cum se vede în Torre Pacheco: Afirmațiile false de pe rețelele de socializare au dus la escaladări suplimentare și diviziuni profunde în comunitate.

Înainte de a distribui o postare, întrerupeți și verificați faptele. Un singur videoclip înșelător poate declanșa haos în lumea reală. Verificați sursele, consultați verificările faptelor și gândiți critic. Oprirea răspândirii dezinformării începe cu fiecare dintre noi.

(Thomas Sparrow a contribuit la acest articol)

Verificare a faptelor: Dezinformarea împotriva musulmanilor este în creștere

Pentru a viziona acest videoclip, vă rugăm să activați JavaScript și să luați în considerare actualizarea la un browser web care acceptă videoclipuri HTML5

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The Federal Constitutional Court is one of the highest courts in Germany and is also seen as the “fifth organ” of the country’s political system, alongside the presidency, the parliament or Bundestag, the federal government and the Bundesrat, the federal council of German states.

Unlike the Federal Criminal Court, which is the highest court for civil and criminal justice, the Federal Constitutional Court’s job is to ensure that Germany’s Basic Law — its constitution — is upheld. It is seen as the guardian of Germans’ basic rights.

The Federal Constitutional Court is also the only court that can decide about banning a political party. The court’s decisions are widely recognized and often offer a course correction for ruling political parties.

All of this is why last week’s failure to elect three new judges to the Federal Constitutional Court has been so controversial.

There are 16 judges on the bench, all of whom can serve 12 years. Half of them are chosen by the Bundesrat, the council of leaders of Germany’s 16 states and the other half by parliament, the Bundestag. In both cases, there must be a two-thirds majority for a judge to be successfully elected.

Fraught process to elect judges

The procedure is always highly political because the court is seen as a pillar of German democracy, a symbol of the separation of powers in the German system and a defense against any politics that work against German citizens’ basic rights. 

Although the process has never been as emotionally heated as the selection of judges for the US’ Supreme Court, there have been occasional controversies around candidates.

One such instance was the 2011 candidature of lawyer Peter Müller. Müller was also a politician and had only just resigned from his post as the state prime minister of Saarland. He is also a member of the conservative Christian Democratic Union, or CDU. Obviously he was not a neutral candidate for the court — he had openly been against the immigration policies of the then-left-leaning federal government — and his application was viewed with some skepticism.

Despite this, the Bundesrat voted unanimously to appoint him to the Federal Constitutional Court. Those voting for him included state prime ministers who belonged to the then-ruling, left-wing parties like the Social Democrats and the Green party. Müller left the court in 2023.

As the German media outlet, Legal Tribune Online, points out, the court’s mixture of opinions is exactly why it is so respected. “The Karlsruhe court thrives on its pluralistic composition,” the legal specialists wrote this week. “In their collective decision-making process, the 16 judges must argue and persuade … the court’s working practices depend on this collaboration resulting in constitutionally sound decisions.”

How a respected law professor became controversial

The Federal Constitutional Court candidate at the center of the controversy, Frauke Brosius-Gersdorf, is not a politician. She is a highly respected constitutional law professor at the University of Potsdam.

Brosius-Gersdorf has repeatedly dealt with difficult areas of jurisprudence, including abortion and how the Basic Law’s ideals about human dignity apply to both mother and unborn child. Basically, when it comes to these tricky questions, she is doing her job, just as she is supposed to.

However last Friday, her candidature for the Federal Constitutional Court appeared to fail. Germany’s governing coalition — with the conservative CDU in the majority and the left-leaning Social Democrats a minority partner — withdrew the election of judges from parliamentary agenda.

It had become clear that the CDU and their junior partner, the Christian Social Union, or CSU, were way too resistant to Brosius-Gersdorf. That was despite the fact that the parliamentary committee selecting the three candidates had previously expressed broad, cross-party support for Brosius-Gersdorf.

Was there a campaign against Brosius-Gersdorf?

For Philipp Sälhoff, head of Berlin-based political consultancy Polisphere the answer is clear. “Yes, there was a campaign,” he told DW.

According to Sälhoff, all the elements one might expect to see in a targeted campaign were there. “Online petitions, calls to action, formulas for [protest] letters you can send to your member of parliament, paid-for advertising and posts, or the networking of actors on social media with one clear goal: preventing the election of this candidate,” he explained.

Reports in traditional media are not part of this, Sälhoff explains: “A critical political report isn’t part of such a campaign, rather they’re legitimate and necessary when it comes to how members of parliament vote, including on Federal Constitutional Court judges.”

The problem is that the campaign on social media was manipulative and became increasingly problematic as disinformation and aggressive exaggeration won over the facts, he noted.

Law professor attacked

According to Polisphere’s research, the agitating done by right-wing organizations like Nius were particularly notable. This online platform, founded by German billionaire Frank Gotthardt who had the intention of making it into this country’s version of Fox News, was shooting at Brosius-Gersdorf from all barrels, and mostly with defamatory and false information.

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The law professor was described as a “left-wing radical,” an extremist who would have allowed babies aborted at nine months and who was against freedom of opinion. These sort of untruths were peddled to an audience of millions and other far-right media followed suit.

When it was announced that the vote on the Federal Constitutional Court judges had been called off, Nius’ editor-in-chief, Julian Reichelt, celebrated. “This is a good day for us,” he said. “Nobody recognized that there are now new media who won’t play along with the [mainstream] political-media complex.” In other words, he saw the campaign against Brosius-Gersdorf as a victory over established German media.

Julian Reichelt, the controversial editor-in-chief of Nius, was dismissed from his previous job at the tabloid Bild after he was accused of misuse of power and inappropriate behaviour with younger female staffImage: Bernd von Jutrczenka/dpa/picture alliance

Polisphere’s Sälhoff sees reasons for concern in Reichelt’s proclamation of victory.

“It’s not about whether these kinds of media impact opinions in Germany — they’ve been doing that for a while already,” he explained. “But to engineer a situation like this in Germany’s parliament in such a short time, where it was exposed more or less out of nowhere, and right in front of the eyes of the German and the international public — that’s certainly success for them,” Sälhoff said.

Of course, at the same time members of parliament make decisions of their own accord. Campaigns, no matter what flavor, are part of the political scenery and they regularly drum up support, regardless of one’s political persuasion.

This is why CDU member and former Federal Constitutional Court judge, Peter Müller, believes the fault lies with his own party’s leadership.

“This is a blatant failure of leadership by the CDU/CSU,” he said in an interview with German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung. “Something like this shouldn’t happen.”

Apparently shortly before the scheduled election of the judges, CDU leader and current Chancellor Friedrich Merz and CDU parliamentary group leader Jens Spahn had signaled they expected party members to support Brosius-Gersdorf’s candidacy. But apparently they were not listened to.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (left) and party chief Jens Spahn: As one German commentator on social media put it, apparently Nius had more influence over the party’s members than their senior politicians didImage: Katharina Kausche/dpa/picture alliance

What happens next?

For the time being, the vote for new Federal Constitutional Court judges has been taken off the parliament’s agenda.

Following that, in a long television interview with one of Germany’s best known talk show hosts, Brosius-Gersdorf took on a lot of the accusations that had been made against her, saying she was neither radical nor extremist. She also tried to explain her position on various issues from a legal point of view.

When asked whether she would continue to seek a spot on the bench, the 54-year-old replied that if there was any danger posed by her candidacy to the court itself, she would withdraw her nomination.

This story was originally published in German. 

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German literary historian Dino Heicker, the author of a book about the history of queerness,” says there are contemporary sources that prove Leonardo loved men and was particularly taken with an apprentice 28 years younger than him named Gian Giacomo Caprotti, whom he nicknamed Salai (“little devil”). They lived together for many years. 

Did da Vinci paint his lover Salai as ‘Monna Vanna’?Image: picture-alliance/akg-images/A. Held

A few years ago, Italian art historians thought they had found proof that the world-famous Mona Lisa was not a depiction of Lisa del Giocondo, the wife of a Florentine merchant, but of Caprotti instead. He modeled for da Vinci several times and researchers say that the resemblance is unmistakable. Additionally, the letters L and S (for Leonardo and Salai) can even be seen in the eyes of the Mona Lisa, as well as the endearing words, “mon salai,” which could also be an  anagram of “Mona Lisa.” 

But the Louvre Museum, where the world-famous painting hangs, isn’t convinced of the theory? Da Vinci and his companion took their secrets to their graves.

In 1550, Leonardo’s first biographer, Giorgio Vasari, wrote that the painter took “peculiar pleasure” in the beautiful boy, the word “peculiar” functioning as a euphemism for da Vinci’s queerness.

The biblical city of Sodom as a den of iniquity 

“When a majority defines what is normal and abnormal and declares a binary gender model to be the norm, this creates a difficult environment for minorities who feel differently,” Heiker says.

In his book, he lists some of the draconian punishments that were inflicted upon queer, non-binary or transgender people in the past. They were accused of indulging in what was referred to at the time as an “unnatural” lifestyle and at times put in chains, stoned, castrated or even burned at the stake. Those meting the punishment sometimes used the Bible to legitimize their persecution of queer people, especially the biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah — these cities were destroyed by God because of “sinful” behavior. The term “sodomy” has also been used as a synonym for homosexuality.

This story “provided the blueprint for centuries of stigmatization toward other kinds of people.” In 1512, the Spanish conquistador Vasco Nunez de Balboa ordered his dogs to maul Indigenous people in America, accusing them of having committed “the horrible sin of sodomy.” 

Dino Heicker spent two years writing his bookImage: Dino Heicker

Varieties of love in antiquity

On the other hand, there were also societies in which many forms of queerness were generally accepted. For example, during antiquity, it was common for men to have a male lover in addition to wives. The Roman emperor Hadrian was so heartbroken by the death of his beloved Antinous that he had him posthumously declared as a god, and erected numerous statues and places of worship to honor the beautiful youth.

The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC) said that lawmakers on the island of Crete had come up with something very special to celebrate new births: pederasty, or “boy love,” when an older man took a young man into his home to train him sexually. “Sexual favors were expected from the younger man, but this was not viewed disparagingly by society,” explains Dino Heicker.

Love between women was also commonplace. On the island of Lesbos, the poet Sappho paid homage to the beauty of the female form in her verses. And models for a variety of different kinds of love were found in the world of the gods — especially Zeus, the father of the gods, and the epitome of queerness. This term did not exist at the time, but he transformed himself into women, animals, and even a cloud in order to have sex with the object of his desire. 

Wall painting from Pompei: Zeus, father of the gods, approached the king’s daughter Europa in the form of a bull and abducted herImage: Tristan Lafranchis/akg-images(picture-alliance

In ancient times, there was nothing considered wrong with men having sex with other men or boys, “as long as they played the active role,” says Heicker. “The penetrated man, i.e. the inferior man, was considered effeminate and was considered socially inferior.” In the Roman Empire, people liked to accuse their political opponents of being sexually passive, because “it was a way of tarnishing their honor.”

A ‘crime against nature’

The spread of Christianity brought an end to the leniency towards same-sex love. The bishop and Benedictine monk, Petrus Damiani (1006-1072) was one of the most influential clergymen of the 11th century. He railed against fornication, which he saw spreading even in monasteries: “The befouling cancer of sodomy,” he wrote, “is, in fact, spreading so through the clergy or rather, like a savage beast, is raging with such shameless abandon through the flock of Christ.” Sodomy, he was convinced, was the result of diabolical whispers.

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Dino Heicker’s book is a journey through queer life Image: BeBra Verlag

Among the samurai warriors in Japan and at the Chinese imperial court, there was a more relaxed attitude towards queerness; same-sex love was common among men. In 1549, the Jesuit priest Francisco de Xavier noted: “The Buddhist priests constantly commit crimes against nature and do not even deny it. They openly admit it.”

The LGBTQ+ who’s who 

In later centuries and modern times, various LGBTQ+ figures — including among royalty — achieved fame.

Heicker’s book lists the Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893), the Irish writer and playwright Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), the US writer James Baldwin (1924-1987) and also Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, two Irish women who retreated to a remote valley in Wales around 1780 and who were eyed suspiciously as the “Ladies of Llangollen.” They were all just trying to find happiness in their own way. 

The diaries of Anne Lister aka ‘Gentleman Jack’

The English landowner Anne Lister (1791-1840) left behind a set of diaries that was added to the UNESCO Memory of the World Register in 2011. “In these 26 volumes, she writes in detail about lesbian sex and her relationship with women,” explains Heicker. Lister developed a secret code so that no uninitiated person could read her confessions, which were not deciphered until 1930. In her village, she was often referred to as “Gentleman Jack” but was largely left undisturbed. Lister’s writing had a significant influence on the direction of British gender studies and stories about women.

Anne Lister is considered the first modern lesbianImage: Gemeinfrei

The third gender

From the Mahu on Tahiti to the Muxes of the Zapotec people in Mexico, the Hijras in South Asia and the Lhamanas of the Zuni culture in north America: for thousands of years, across cultures, people have felt they belonged to the third gender, identifying neither as men nor as women. “There was much greater diversity than the narrow, binary gender model would have us think today,” says Heicker. “The Zuni, for example, do not assume that gender is innate, rather they see it as a social construct.”

We’wha traveled to the US in 1885 and was received by the president as a Zuni princess; no one suspected We’wha of being biologically male.Image: Gemeinfrei

In Germany today, the third gender is referred to as “diverse.” 

“Queer people, especially in Germany, have had to fight for freedoms previous generations could only dream of,” says Heicker. “In 1994, Paragraph 175(which criminalized sexual acts between men, Editor’s note) was finally removed from the penal code. Same-sex marriage has been legalized, and sexual discrimination is now an offence. On the other hand, and here comes the big but: these achievements must continuously also be protected, especially in the face of attempts to turn back the clock.” 

This article was originally written in German. 

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