The radical right-wing platform Vizier op Links intimidated historian Nadia Porras and GroenLinks politician Huub Bellemakers, among others, by placing stickers on their front door. Various reports have now been submitted and parliamentary questions raised, but the big question remains (and we have no answer to that yet): Who is behind Vizier op Links? This is what we know now.
Vizier op Links sends messages daily and is difficult to handle legally. Through these messages, the platform “exposes” alleged left-wing politicians, judges, and scholars by posting their names and addresses on the Internet.
From a legal standpoint, the site is difficult to deal with as long as the people behind it remain unknown, says attorney Otto Volgant. Once we know who they are, you can at least initiate civil but possibly criminal proceedings as well. “
Posters affixed to doors and windows last week were split among donors who paid through the Backme donation platform.
For 10 euros per month, a donor can become an “ally” and then receive a set of fifty stickers with “monitored site” and ten stickers written in A4 format with the text “Activists Wanted Left”.
So it is not clear who is hiding behind the Vizier op links. NU.nl spoke to broadcaster and former politician Jan Ross, whom the people behind Vizier op Links called in December. Roos runs the Backme donation platform with co-creator Ahmed Arad.
Roos has no idea who is behind the Vizier op links. “I was contacted via Twitter. Then I looked at their timeline, every now and then it’s funny and sometimes it’s not. But that’s not the point. On Backme, we’re not talking about the content, nor should it be my taste or preference Pioneer. Is nothing but the legislation in force. “
Ross brought Vizier op Links to his partner, Aarad. They mutually agreed to allow Vizier op Links to access the platform, but “to watch things out,” says Ross. Arad: “We thought it was good for him to expose the networks, but we wanted it to remain that way. Do not give out people’s addresses, because this is intimidating.”
They had no personal contact with the people behind the Vizier op links, only via Twitter and Telegram. Aarad has transferred the donations received to the Bitcoin account.
After making the sticker, alarm bells start ringing. When historian Nadia Porras found a poster on her doorstep, she reported it on Twitter and went to the police to report it.
“I saw him on Twitter and immediately called Ahmed,” Ross says. Aarad, in turn, contacted Vizier op Links, but did not want to take responsibility for the poster campaign. Arad: Then he stopped me, and we pulled the plug within an hour.
For the Vizier op Links the hype is the reason to stoke the fire even more. The posters were dismissed as “fun,” “thousands already sent,” and it would be “a little complicated to have us each individual poster”.
Vizier op Links reported this week that not only Backme, but also Protonmail, PayPal and Linktree are refusing to collaborate. Posters cannot be ordered at this time because “it takes time to invent and create a new system”.
Urk web host not intrinsically involved in Vizier op links. 21-year-old web host S. Bakker from Urk has been offering Vizier op Links hosting for a while. Packer was accused of “far-right sympathy” on the left-wing activist website Indymedia in December of last year. The anonymous authors, who describe themselves as “anti-fascist on the Internet,” claim that Packer is the “owner and possibly the sole employee” of Vizier op Links.
He is not asked to reply. After the article was published by Indymedia, Packer was weighed down with responses, he told NU.nl. Packer says he wasn’t involved with Vizier op’s link content, but acted only as a web host.
He himself had never been in contact with the people behind the Vizier op links. The hosting package was ordered through a so-called “distributor,” Packer rented out the physical machines. Customer contact has exceeded its limits. “I immediately discontinued Vizier op links after that article on Indymedia,” says Packer. “I don’t want to be attached to that.”
After the Vizier op Links failed in Ukraine, the site says it has found shelter in Iceland, but it appears that Vizier op Links has relocated again, this time to Arizona in the US. Vizier links are still active on Twitter. Questions are not answered from NU.nl to Twitter.
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