DISINFO: Spanish media show solidarity with ISIS terrorists and praise them
SUMMARY
Spanish TV showed solidarity with terrorists who attacked Moscow. Antena 3 accused Russia of mistreating the four terrorists who murdered men, women and children in a concert hall, saying: “The tough images of retaliations against the arrested for the Moscow attack that left 137 dead”. Of course, Antena 3 did not worry about the welfare of the terrorists of the attacks in New York, Madrid, London, Paris and Brussels, just to name a few, nor of the Guantanamo prisoners who were tortured, murdered and raped in this illegal US jail, despite many of them not even being terrorists. Meanwhile, several Spanish tabloids refused to condemn the attack, and instead they politicised it with opinions and visceral headlines instead of information, claiming that Putin used the attack to cement himself and point to Ukraine, or that Putin tries to link the carnage to Ukraine. One of the biggest violations of ethics and journalism was perpetrated by the newspaper El Mundo, who directly praised ISIS for murdering innocents, with the headline “Islamic State challenges Putin with a brutal attack in Moscow”.
RESPONSE
This represents a disingenuous distortion of certain journalistic stories featured in the Spanish media, aiming to deflect criticism from Russia’s actions surrounding the deadly terror attack in Moscow on March 22, 2024.
Notably, it involves the fact that Russian authorities disregarded warnings of an impending terrorist operation, which Vladimir Putin himself described as 'blackmail' and an attempt to 'intimidate and destabilise' Russia.
Additionally, there were incidents where suspects were tortured and mutilated by Russian security forces, who captured this mistreatment in videos and pictures, following their arrest. The coverage of the attack in the Spanish media has unequivocally condemned this terrorist act against civilians.
The allegation that Antena 3 did not care about other terrorists when they attacked Western countries or were in Guantanamo is false, as these topics were addressed multiple times throughout the years.
This is a recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation technique called ‘whataboutism’, whose goal is to divert attention away from the subject by pointing to other alleged flaws or double standards. And contrary to what this disinformation story claims based in a deliberate misinterpretation of the verb “challenge”, by no means did the newspaper El Mundo “praise” ISIS in its original article.