"On campaigning": funding for lobbying anti-Axis CitizenGo has doubled since the start of the pandemic

The only source of funding for the CitizenGo platform, which operates in 50 countries around the world and which experts associate with far-right organizations, is donations, according to the organization's website.

“CitizenGo is entirely funded by small online donations from thousands of citizens around the world,” the statement said.

- CitizenGо does not accept financial support from government agencies or commercial companies under any circumstances.

You will not find commercial advertisements on our website. "

Proportion property

According to the published financial statements, over 341 million rubles were transferred to the accounts of the lobbying platform in 2020.

It is noteworthy that 142 million rubles was spent “on campaigns” (which accounted for over 86% of the organization's expenses).

What these campaigns were is not specified.

However, the ratio of regular and one-time donations is of interest.

Thus, contributions from donors who regularly (usually monthly) transfer money to CitizenGo amounted to 88.6 million rubles in 2020 - 26% of the total number of donations.

The remaining 74% (252.7 million rubles) are one-time payments by unknown supporters of the site.  

Such a ratio of one-time and regular donations resembles the principle of replenishing the bitcoin wallet of the Anti-Corruption Foundation * of Alexei Navalny, says Movses Gazaryan, a specialist at the Foundation for the Development of Modern Diplomacy.

That is, regular subscribers and donors donate several times less than unknown sponsors who transfer significant amounts one-time.

Earlier, RT wrote that Navalny's FBK was only 22% financed from donations from sympathetic citizens.

The remaining 78% in the period from 2017 to 2020 were contributed by the fund employees themselves and businessmen from abroad.

Also on russian.rt.com, the Founder of the "Sentence" portal spoke about the income of FBK Navalny in cryptocurrency

However, CitizenGo does not publish any information about its major sponsors.

It is noteworthy that during the pandemic, the organization's annual revenues almost doubled.

In 2018, the total amount of donations amounted to 178 million rubles, in 2019 - 175 million, and in 2020 - 341 million rubles.  

Promotion algorithm

On the Russian-language version of the CitizenGo website, you can make a donation of any amount (but not less than 100 rubles) from a bank card using Mastercard, Visa or PayPal.

At the same time, the platform will collect as much information as possible about the donor.

Before donating, you must enter not only the card number, but also other personal data: full name, residence address, zip code, e-mail.

How this information is protected and how it will be used in the future is unknown.  

The algorithm for signing any petition on CitizenGo is similar to the voting algorithm on Change.org, only the email does not receive a confirmation that your vote has been taken into account.

It is impossible for a third-party user to check how correctly the subscriber counter is working.

Also, the voting mechanism is not protected from spam attacks and cheating.

Also on russian.rt.com "Easier than likes on social networks": how you can promote any petition on Change.org

Any user can push up any petition an unlimited number of times.

This can be done from one mailing address.

When you try to vote again, the site identifies the user by the entered postal address, even addresses him by name, but does not block the opportunity to leave his vote again.

In such situations, the vote counter is not protected from cheating.

Using the most ordinary anonymizer, you can throw votes from several accounts, RT wrote earlier.

Initial data

A previous investigation into the anti-vaccine lobby said that in August 2021, WikiLeaks published more than 17,000 documents on the activities of CitizenGo and the related far-right Spanish organization HazteOir.

Also on russian.rt.com "Discrediting the state": how the anti-Axist movement is being lobbied in Russia

Among them, financial statements are of particular interest.

So, according to the report of the CitizenGo representative office in the USA for 2015, the American branch received $ 100 thousand.But in 2016 the organization expected to earn $ 200 thousand, and in 2017 - $ 300 thousand.

It is noteworthy that the Spanish company, which collects personal data and actively declares its political and socio-economic views, did not fall under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) - it is not on the American list of foreign agents.

At the same time, HazteOir and CitizenGo are associated with the "secret Mexican militant group" El Yunque, as well as with the Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society (USA).

This union is called the World Congress of Families (WCF).

The main goal of this organization was called "influencing politics under the guise of family values."

HazteOir gained worldwide fame after a series of scandalous human rights actions directed against feminism.

In 2019, she ran a so-called bus campaign to repeal the Gender-Based Violence Law.

During the week, a bus with a portrait of Adolf Hitler and an anti-feminism slogan went around the city of Spain.

After that, the Spanish Ministry of Internal Affairs canceled the HazteOir declaration on the status of a public benefit organization and deprived it of state subsidies.

But for the first time, HazteOir buses appeared on the streets of Spain in 2017, when social activists launched a propaganda campaign against the transgender community.

And the fact that the founder of CitizenGo and HazteOir Ignacio Arsuaga is flirting with Mexican extremists El Yunque, it became known back in 2003 from the investigation of the Mexican political journalist Alvaro Delgado.

HazteOir tried to challenge its relationship with El Yunque and filed a lawsuit in a Madrid court, but the case was lost.

Subsequently, representatives of HazteOir in court demanded that Google remove all links that mention the organization's connection with the Nazis from El Yunque.

But this court was also lost.

* The Anti-Corruption Foundation is included in the register of NPOs performing the functions of a foreign agent, by decision of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation dated 09.10.2019.

The organization is recognized as extremist, its activities are prohibited on the territory of Russia by the decision of the Moscow City Court of 06/09/2021.