{"id":1621446,"date":"2024-04-20T15:09:48","date_gmt":"2024-04-20T15:09:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/?p=466878"},"modified":"2024-04-20T15:09:48","modified_gmt":"2024-04-20T15:09:48","slug":"lawsuit-links-wild-uae-financed-smear-campaign-to-george-washington-university","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2024\/04\/20\/lawsuit-links-wild-uae-financed-smear-campaign-to-george-washington-university\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawsuit Links Wild UAE-Financed Smear Campaign to George Washington University"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Once a well-respected<\/u> public commentator and academic in his native Austria, Farid Hafez\u2019s life slowly began to unravel after rumors spread that he was an affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood \u2014 allegedly a sleeper agent promoting extremism in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI used to be published every month in newspapers from both the left and right. I had a high profile in Austria, and people took me seriously,\u201d Hafez said. \u201cBut some years ago, people started calling me to tell me that there were rumors about me spreading behind closed doors. I felt there was a difference, and that something was changing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEventually,\u201d he said, \u201cI was sidelined to such an extent that newspapers would not even publish me anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI was sidelined to such an extent that newspapers would not even publish me anymore.\u201d<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nHafez\u2019s growing ostracism in Austria culminated in a controversial police operation in 2020 called Operation Luxor. Hafez and others were targeted with raids and asset seizures. Hafez ultimately left Austria for the United States, where he took up a visiting professorship at Williams College in Massachusetts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Operation Luxor was later deemed unlawful<\/a> by Austrian courts, and the police\u2019s terrorism charges against Hafez were eventually dropped. Today, the case is widely viewed as a witch hunt that targeted Austrian Muslims. Despite his exoneration, the damage to Hafez\u2019s life from the yearslong ordeal have been immense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cA lot of this has basically been about destroying my reputation,\u201d he said. \u201cEverybody knew that I was affected by this, even far from Austria.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Little did Hafez know at the time, but the rumors about him and others in Austria originated from a research center at George Washington University and a prominent U.S.-based terrorism analyst there named Lorenzo Vidino, according to a lawsuit filed late last month. Hafez\u2019s suit<\/a> alleges fraud and racketeering, asking for $10 million in damages from Vidino, along with George Washington University and its Program on Extremism, the research center that Vidino heads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The lawsuit, according to a press release, alleges that Hafez and others were targets of an organized smear campaign, accusing Vidino of \u201cparticipating in a criminal enterprise that deployed fake journalists, social media bots and pay-to-play reporters to destroy the careers of dozens of individuals by constructing and disseminating false narratives linking them to the Muslim Brotherhood.\u201d (Vidino and George Washington University haven\u2019t filed a response to the lawsuit, and neither replied to requests for comment.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The campaign against Hafez exploited an environment of suspicion that can result in Muslim or Arab scholars being targeted, said an academic who works on anti-Islam bias, noting that such campaigns often fixate on people whose work touches on politically sensitive subjects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n