A professor filed a lawsuit Wednesday against a prestigious American university for taking part in a disinformation campaign, allegedly financed by the United Arab Emirates, linking academics to the Muslim Brotherhood organization.
Farid Hafez, an Austrian political scientist, filed a lawsuit seeking $10 million from George Washington University (GWU) and Lorenzo Vidino, the director of the Program on Extremism.
It is the second such case this year, in what researchers describe as a lucrative industry peddling false information and carrying out influence operations on behalf of large clients.
Foreign governments have long been accused of buying their influence with donations to American universities or other think tanks. But Mr. Hafez goes further, accusing a prestigious university of damaging the image of certain people in the name of a state.
Filed in Washington, the complaint indicates that the university and Mr. Vidino “engaged in a well-concealed conspiracy to defraud the authorities, the academic world and the fourth estate”, that is to say the press, while “presenting themselves as independent and objective actors in the academic world”.
AFP
The complaint also accuses Alp Services, a private company based in Geneva, of having, on behalf of the Emirates, paid journalists and academics including Mr. Vidino to undermine criticism of the wealthy Gulf state.
Mr. Vidino is accused of having used his position at the university to target academics like Mr. Hafez, but also companies and associations by publishing false reports linking them to the Muslim Brotherhood, designated by the Emirates as an organization terrorist.
“Mr. Vidino was a mercenary selling and repackaging unverified rumors and gossip under the veneer of academic objectivity and knowledge, with the aim of ruining people and institutions,” according to the complaint.
“Life destroyed”
Mr. Hafez, a professor at Williams College in Massachusetts, was arrested in 2020 during a series of arrests against Muslim people and businesses in Austria.
None of the detainees were subsequently charged and the operation was declared illegal by the courts in 2021.
Mr. Hafez believes he was involved in this police raid because of a report from Mr. Vidino.
A contractual agreement, seen by AFP, shows Mr Vidino was hired to provide “interesting leads” to Alp, who allegedly used them in disinformation operations for the United Arab Emirates.
“My client’s life was destroyed by activities carried out against him by GWU, Mr. Vidino and Alp Services,” Mr. Hafez’s lawyer, David Schwartz, told AFP.
He added that his client was seeking $10 million in damages.
Asked by AFP, neither the university nor Mr. Vidino reacted.
“Even if the university and program were unaware of the actions taken privately, the prestige of the position may have added credibility to the misinformation,” said Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a specialist on Gulf countries. at Rice University.
This is not the first such action involving the UAE. In January, US-Italian citizen Hazim Nada accused the Gulf country of disinformation, via Alp Services, causing the bankruptcy of his commodities trading company, Lord Energy.
Mr. Hafez’s affair highlights the possible influence of foreign money in American universities, Benjamin Freeman, a specialist in these issues at the Quincy Institute, explains to AFP.
“American universities receiving millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars from authoritarian regimes will be less and less inclined to criticize these regimes,” estimates Mr. Freeman.
