‘Culture warriors’: The far-right’s campaign against Adina Marincea

Adina Marincea is forced to equip herself against the hate. A few days before her first controversial article appeared in a Romanian newspaper, she set her social media to private, searched the web for her personal contact information and cleaned it up. She wanted to prevent people who wished her harm from finding out too much about her. She didn’t want them to be able to use biographical details against her and exploit them. 

Marincea knows a lot about traces on the internet. With a PhD in communication science, she monitors the populist and extreme right in Romania for the Elie Wiesel Institute in Bucharest, especially in the digital space. From September 2021, she started reporting on her findings to a wider audience in the daily tabloid Libertatea — in opinionated articles that she backs up with evidence. On January 31, 2022, she got the response she feared when she reported on the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), a right-wing populist party, and its links to fascist organizations. 

Marincea’s precautionary security measures are not in vain. For two and a half years now, Romania’s right-wing extremists have had her on their radar, bombarding her with threats, humiliation and insults. Haters have penned misogynistic poems about her and daubed anti-Marincea graffiti on city walls. So far, she has faced no physical attacks. But at a Pride Week event in the summer of 2023, right-wing thugs attacked LGBTQIA+ activists — right at the time Marincea was called out as an LGBTQIA+ activist herself. She may not have been the target of the violence, but the incident showed what the right-wingers were capable of.

The perpetrators of the smears and threats are right-wing groups, nationalist journalists, politicians, fascist activists and a former intelligence service officer. In Marincea, they find plenty of space to project their hatred: She is a woman who reports on the far-right scene, reaches many people as a journalist and works as a researcher at an institute known as a guardian of Holocaust memory and education.

“Over time, I got used to it a bit and accepted that there are some risks,” Marincea said.

On an unusually hot day in April 2024, she was sitting for an interview in the Elie Wiesel Institute’s conference room. On the walls, drawings served as reminders of the horrors of the Holocaust. History books stood behind glass in a cabinet.

Founded in 2005, the state-funded institute  is officially called the National Institute for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania “Elie Wiesel”. Its task is to research the history of the Holocaust in the country and to raise awareness about contemporary antisemitism. The institute is on Boulevard Dacia in Bucharest, one of the capital’s main streets with buildings in modern architecture and villas in the Belle Époque and Art Deco styles. Outside the institute, a security guard sits in a guardhouse and a sign warns of camera surveillance.

The Elie Wiesel National Institute for Studying the Holocaust in Romania, (Romanian: Institutul Naţional pentru Studierea Holocaustului din România “Elie Wiesel”). Photo: Jean-Philipp Baeck

 

Does she feel protected? “Not at all,” she said. Marincea has not yet contacted the police about the threats and insults. She doesn’t expect any help. Just how inconsistently hate crime is punished can be seen in the very few cases in which Holocaust denial has been brought to court. 

In 2015, the relevant law was extended and fascist propaganda was banned in Romania. Nevertheless, in cases of violence motivated by factors such as ethnicity or sexual orientation, the police and courts often fail to recognize these as aggravating circumstances, despite legal provisions to the contrary, Marincea explained. “It’s due to a lack of knowledge or because the judges themselves have an ultra-conservative background and share homophobic, racist, antisemitic or transphobic prejudices.”

Some lawyers even have sympathy for far-right movements or trivialize the Holocaust, Marincea said. “The police and authorities, who are supposed to protect citizens from right-wing violence and crime, are often part of the problem themselves,” she added. “Like in the case of Emilia Șercan.”

The case of Romanian investigative journalist Emilia Șercan caused an international stir. In 2022, a few months after Șercan accused Romania’s then prime minister, Nicolae Ciucă, of plagiarizing his doctoral thesis, stolen personal photos of her appeared on adult websites. After a report to the police, things got worse. Media published pieces of evidence that Șercan had handed over to investigators less than an hour earlier — presumably after police leaked it straight to reporters.

Șercan’s case shows that Romania still has a vibrant media landscape with journalists unafraid to expose corruption and foster a pluralistic discourse. On the flip side, the media industry is dominated by opaque financing structures through state funding and influential corporations.

ActiveWatch, a non-governmental organization dedicated to monitoring press freedom in Romania, is critical of what it sees as increasing control and censorship of digital communication. For example, Romania passed security laws in 2022 and 2023 that grant the authorities extensive surveillance rights. Critical journalists are the target of discrediting campaigns and threats from politicians, the military and business people. The right-wing AUR party in particular has launched public attacks and smear campaigns against media organizations.

Marincea sees a shift in political discourse in recent years. “With the entry of the AUR into parliament in 2020, the extreme right in Romania became much more visible,” she said.  As its name — the Alliance for the Unification of Romanians — suggests, the party is striving for a Greater Romania, including unification with the neighboring Republic of Moldova. Founded in 2019, AUR recorded its first surprising success in the 2020 parliamentary elections, where it achieved nine percent of the vote. In European Parliament elections on June 9, 2024, AUR came in behind an alliance of social democrats and liberals with 14.9 percent of the vote.

AUR claims to be national-patriotic and Christian democratic. In the EU Parliament, it is part of the Group of European Conservatives and Reformists, together with right-wing kindred spirits such as the Italian Fratelli d’Italia and the Polish PiS,. Experts like Marincea say AUR has links to neo-fascists and embraces historical revisionism, racism and antisemitism.

AUR is not the only successful far-right party in Romania. Diana Șoșoacă, a lawyer, lawmaker and former AUR politician, leads the new SOS Romania party. Critics describe Șoșoacă as wacky, antisemitic, anti-European and pro-Russian. They say she is even overtaking AUR from the right. 

In June 2024, SOS Romania achieved just over five percent of the Romanian vote in the European elections, allowing Șoșoacă and a party colleague to enter the European Parliament. She now sits next to the extreme German right-wing MEP Maximilian Krah from the Alternative for Germany  party. During the election campaign, Șoșoacă had already announced that she would also fight in Brussels for the restoration of the Greater Romania territory to its 1918 borders. In mid-May, she spoke of a “Jewish-Bolshevik dictatorship” in the Romanian parliament and denied the Holocaust. Diana Șosoaca did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this report.

The rise of right-wing extremism is particularly explosive in Romania in  2024 — a so-called super election year. AUR and Șoșoacă’s SOS Romania will contest upcoming presidential elections in September and parliamentary elections in December. 

The fact that politics in Romania is characterized by historical revisionist tendencies and a right-wing nationalist awakening was evident in the spring during the European election campaign in Bucharest. AUR imbued its campaign with historical kitsch and plastered the likenesses of historical leaders on its hoardings almost as often as it did its current candidates. An entire wall of AUR advertising banners was installed near the large Orthodox cathedral not far from the old city center. One picture showed a traditional family of four, while others had drawings of the Wallachian ruler Vlad III Drăculea, who resisted the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century and is closely linked to the enslavement of members of the Roma minority. Mihau Viteazul, a national hero from the 16th century, was also featured on AUR posters. Drawing comparisons with its historic heroes,  AUR adopted “defender of the Romanian fatherland” as a slogan and proclaimed the EU elections on June 9 as the “next battle”.

Campaign artwork of the right-wing nationalist AUR party in Bucharest in the run-up to the “next battle” (the European elections on June 9, 2024). The posters show a traditional family and historical figures such as Vlad III Dracula and Mihai Viteazul.

Photo: Jean-Philipp Baeck

 

At the same time, there are stickers from neo-fascist organizations all over the city: crossed-out Antifa signs, anti-communist symbols, nationalist slogans calling for a Greater Romania and declaring that the region of “Bessarabia”, which today lies in Moldova and Ukraine, belongs to Romania. Evidence of widespread antisemitism was found, for example, around posters on house walls commemorating the Israelis taken hostage by Hamas on October 7, 2023; almost all of them were torn up and covered with right-wing extremist stickers. 

Right-wing decoration of the city:

Graffiti featuring the Celtic Cross, a white-power emblem, and stickers with nationalist logos and anti-communist messages adorn lamp posts while nationalist stickers deface a poster remembering Israeli hostages. Photos: Jean-Philipp Baeck

 

In an up-and-coming EU nation with a cosmopolitan metropolis and booming IT sector, nationalists are fighting back with references to ghosts of the past. It is history marketing, which includes historical revisionism and, not infrequently, Holocaust denial. Experts like Marincea, who reports on this phenomenon, are the enemy in this right-wing culture war.

In more recent years, the reappraisal of history in Romania was closely linked to the country’s ties with the West and Europe. 

Motivated by nationalist sentiment, the Stalinist dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu suppressed crimes committed under the fascist Marshal Ion Antonescu for decades. Antonescu ruled Romania between 1940 and 1944 and was associated with the fascist Legionary Movement, which had up to 250,000 members in the interwar period and is still revered by Romanian right-wing extremists today.

A reappraisal and broader social debate about the guilt of the Holocaust in Romania only began in the early 2000s, when the country was about to join NATO and the EU. The Holocaust relativization that was widespread in Romania – as even the then president, Ion Iliescu, was still publicly advocating in the summer of 2003 – was no longer accepted on the international stage. Aware of the critics breathing down his neck and with an eye on ties to the West, Iliescu founded the International Commission for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania in the same year. It was headed by the Romanian-born Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel and is therefore known as the Wiesel Commission.

The Holocaust Memorial in Bucharest was inaugurated in 2009 and is a reminder of the murder of thousands of Jews and Roma in Romania and Ukraine during World War II.

Photo: Jean-Philipp Baeck

 

It was not until the final report presented by the commission in 2004 that a broader public debate on the crimes of the Antonescu regime was initiated in Romania. The report documented the extent of the pogroms, the persecution and extermination of Jews and Roma, the responsibility of the Romanian authorities and systematic Romanian antisemitism. According to the report, up to 380,000 Romanian and Ukrainian Jews and at least 11,000 Roma were murdered by the Antonescu regime in a separate Romanian Holocaust — independently of the Nazi German allies. The commission called for an acceptance of responsibility for the guilt of the Romanian Holocaust, recognition of the war crimes, compensation, combating today’s antisemitism and racism and education and research into the crimes.

Among the 29 historians, diplomats, rabbis and journalists appointed to the commission at the time was William Totok, a Romanian-German and author for the German daily newspaper taz. He is still on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Wiesel Institute, for which Marincea also works.

Like Marincea, Totok has experienced hatred. He has endured it for decades. On a sultry summer’s day in July, the publicist and historian sat outside a café in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district and smoked one roll-up after another. Totok, born in 1951, was a founding member of the literary Banat Action Group in Romania and was imprisoned for a year in 1975 under Ceaușescu for “anti-state poems”. He has lived in Germany since 1987 after being forced to leave the country. Since then, he has written for the taz newspaper. 

Totok was not only a thorn in the side of the Stalinists in Romania, but later also of the anti-communist right — especially since he was appointed to the Wiesel Commission. “The death threats used to come by post or over the phone. Today they are on the internet,” Totok said, referring to insinuations, insults and personal attacks. In 2005, for example, the now-defunct conservative newspaper Ziua laid into Totok by saying he was a Jew who did not publicly acknowledge his origins. It went on to say that people could hardly wait for his funeral. “William Totok, the Jew, denigrates Romania again,” someone wrote in 2019 on the right-wing Incorect Politic blog under the pseudonym Sterie Ciumetti, a historical figure of the fascist Romanian Legionary Movement. The blog post ended with a thinly veiled threat: “At some point, there will be a reckoning.” Asked to comment for this report, “Ciumetti” answered as chief-editor and rejected all accusations of antisemitism.

Totok said: “I don’t take it all as seriously as I should.” But it doesn’t leave him completely cold. He is often asked for television interviews but frequently turns them down. After a few appearances, people would recognize him on the street — something he wanted to avoid “for safety reasons”, he explained.

In July 2024, the right-wing Incorect Politic blog featured a cover showing a photo of Totok. Internationally, “politically incorrect” stands for a concept that opposes supposed left-wing political correctness. Since 2004, there has been a racist blog under the same label in Germany, “PI-News”, and neo-Nazis and right-wing trolls also exchange ideas anonymously in forums under this name in the darker corners of the internet, on so-called “image boards”.

The right-wing Incorect Politic blog shows a picture of William Totok (bottom right) on its title banner. Screenshot: Jean-Philipp Baeck

 

In the Romanian version of Incorect Politic, Adina Marincea is also a frequent target of vitriol. “She raises awareness about the fascists, engages for LGBTQI rights and works for the Wiesel Institute,” Totok said. “Adina Marincea is a red rag for Romanian right-wingers.She combines everything that infuriates the nationalists, and the hatred against her is correspondingly massive.” 

But Marincea continues her research undeterred. Still, the threats leave their mark. After the publication of articles critical of the far-right scene, she often takes a cab or spends the night in other places for security reasons, Marincea said.

In April 2024, months after it was created, graffiti in a side street not far from Bucharest’s old town still bears witness to the hatred directed towards Adina Marincea. “Ana Pauker n-a crăpat, în Adina s-a machiat” is written in black letters on the wall of a house (“Ana Pauker didn’t die, she is Adina with makeup”) The slogan was accompanied by a Celtic cross, commonly used worldwide as a symbol of the fascist and neo-Nazi scene. 

A Jewish communist, Ana Pauker was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and foreign minister of Romania from 1947 to 1952. The graffiti was partially painted over in April 2024, but the message underneath is still recognizable: an antisemitic and anti-communist slur of Adrina Marincea in a public space, a translation of hatred from the online sphere to the analog world. 

In April 20204, graffiti directed against Adina Marincea can still be seen not far from Bucharest’s old town. It reads: “Ana Pauker n-a crăpat, în Adina s-a machiat” (“Ana Pauker didn’t die, she is Adina with makeup“).

Photo: Jean-Philipp Baeck

Marincea learnt of the graffiti on October 18, 2023; the lettering was probably created on the same day. Just one day earlier, Marincea had been linked to Ana Pauker in an Instagram post by the right-wing Romanian football ultra group Honor et Patria; the equally right-wing ultra group Radical Entourage left a comment that matched, word for word, the message written on the Bucharest house wall the following day. The group later deleted the sentence about Marincea after the graffiti appeared.

 

An Instagram post from the right-wing ultra group Honor et Patria from October 17, 2023 scurrilously links Adina Marincea to the Jewish communist Ana Pauker. Underneath, the right-wing group “Radical Entourage” commented on the sentence: “Ana Pauker n-a crăpat, în Adina s-a machiat” (“Ana Pauker didn’t die, she is Adina with makeup”). This sentence was discovered as graffiti on a house wall in Bucharest just a day later. 

Screenshot: Adina Marincea

 

What had happened? Marincea had simply done her job. As a researcher and journalist, she often provides commentary on the right-wing scene in Romania, so, in October 2023, she turned to her Facebook profile to share her latest findings: The right-wing ultra group Honor et Patria, which has no allegiance to any local football club but solely to the Romanian national team, was planning to celebrate its 20th anniversary. One of the group’s former leaders is George Simion, the current chairman of the nationalist AUR party.  

Marincea found out about the invitation to the ultra group’s anniversary party through a post from a confidant of politician Diana Şoșoacă of SOS Romania. Marincea knew the bands that were to perform at the party, one of whose  lead singer had tattoos of the fascist Legionary Movement on his hand. The bands’ lyrics glorified violence and racism. Marincea pointed this out in her Facebook post and tagged the club where the party was to take place. The club then canceled the event and Marincea was once again the target of hate attacks. 

Honor et Patria did not respond to an inquiry for this report. We also contacted Radical Entourage. They declined to meet for an interview. Instead, they replied by email: “We don’t trust journalists, especially from the mainstream media riding the trends. Whatever we would say, you would write what you want or extract things from the context. Only lies, false flags, manipulation and controlled dictated propaganda.” The email ended with the sentence: “Press is garbage!” 

 

Read the full reply to our inquiry by Radical Entourage via email on April 22, 2024:

Hi, 

We don’t trust journalists, especially from the mainstream media riding the trends. Whatever we would say, you would write what you want or extract things from the context.  Only lies, false flags, manipulation and controlled dictated propaganda.  We are against all enemies of  traditional, Christian Europe, and all invaders, no matter the directions they come from. We are for a Europe of suveran, healthy nations, each with its identity and heroes. 

Press is garbage!

 

Not the first incident – hate in the digital sphere

Adina Marincea has had to deal with hostility and poisonous comments in the past — for example, when strangers called her a “stupid Bolshevik” on her Facebook profile, although she has never identified herself as a communist. The threats became much more severe when she spoke out about far-right networks and ideologies as an author for the popular newspaper Libertatea. They continue to this day.

As soon as Marincea revealed connections between the right-wingAUR party and neo-fascist organizations, the smear campaign and slander began. On January 31, 2022, Marincea published an article titled “AUR’s links to the Orthodox and neolegionary brotherhoods. The role of camps where children are exposed to propaganda“. 

Her report highlighted AUR’s ties to Holocaust deniers and criticized the rehabilitation of war criminals. She recalled that in early 2022, AUR had called on its Facebook page to create a list of the “most toxic and false” media and quoted party founder George Simion as venting about “globalist neo-Marxists who hate Romania”. Marincea wrote that Simion is an experienced politician and understands how “the liberal consensus after the fall of fascism sanctions extremism and the explicit exclusion of groups based on ethnicity, identity, gender, religion or sexual orientation”. But she added: “Although George Simion has repeatedly claimed that he does not deny the Holocaust and that his party is neither legionary nor extremist, he and the AUR party have a network of connections and lasting alliances with neo-legionary groups in Romania.” 

To this end, Marincea sheds light on the role of Călin Georgescu in particular. At that time, he recently had been appointed honorary president of the AUR. According to G4Media, Georgescu had described the ruler Ion Antonescu, the perpetrator of the Holocaust in Romania, as a “hero of the Romanian nation” in a video in 2020. 

According to Marincea, Călin Georgescu’s supporters include Eugen Sechila, a former soldier in the French Foreign Legion. He runs paramilitary indoctrination camps organized by the Gogu Puiu and Outlaws of Dobrogea Association (Asociatia “Gogu Puiu si Haiducii Dobrogei”) with the participation of the Orthodox Brotherhood. According to Marincea, the association is named after the anti-communist armed resistance movement from Dobrogea. Gogu Puiu was one of the legionnaires who were active in Marshal Ion Antonescu’s guard battalion in the interwar period and during his military service.

In addition to Călin Georgescu, George Simion and AUR’s co-chair, Claudiu Târziu, also have links to several neo-legionary groups, Marincea wrote in Libertatea. Those groups are the Orthodox Brotherhood (Frăţia Ortodoxă), the Gogu Puiu Association (Asociaţia Gogu Puiu), the Ion Gavrilă Ogoranu Foundation (Fundaţia Ion Gavrilă Ogoranu) and the New Right (Noua Dreaptă).

The Internet Archive Wayback Machine shows that the Gogu Puiu and Outlaws of Dobrogea Association responded on Facebook to the accusation that they were organizing indoctrination camps and countered Marincea with the statements of some parents whose children had allegedly attended the camps. A 52-year-old engineer from Bucharest was quoted as saying: “I hope that the lackey who poses as a hack and allows herself to hurl communist insults against people whose hearts still beat Romanian is well paid by the neo-Marxists who bought her dignity and her pen so that her betrayal at least has a price.” 

 

Reaction of the Gogu Puiu and Outlaws of Dobrogea Association on Facebook on January 31, 2022 to an article by Adina Marincea. 

Screenshot: Jean-Philipp Baeck

 

The association had almost 9,000 followers on Facebook as of mid-2024. It was only a single longer post at the time, but it set the tone by delegitimizing and demeaning the journalist. She was belittled and disparaged, accused of treason, of being bought, of not a real journalist and of being a “neo-Marxist”. These are narratives that Marincea would encounter again and again in the months and years that followed. The reaction in January 2022 was the prelude to a cascade of hate speech that would accompany every one of her critical articles from then on. “After that, I got more aggressive reactions. I probably disturbed them more and more,” Marincea said.

With her next report, the anger and the number of reactions grew. On March 4, 2023, Marincea published an article titled “The extreme right in Romania celebrates its 100th anniversary and glorifies its new and old ‘heroes’. Are we going back to the 1920s from the streets to parliament?” 

In the report, Marincea talked about how AUR founder Simion’s attempts to rehabilitate the party’s image had earned him the label “philosemite” among antisemitic ultra-nationalists. However, this does not apply to other ideologues of the party, such as co-chair Claudiu Târziu and AUR lawmaker and philosopher Sorin Lavric, who are both “still among the favorites of pro-legionary and far-right groups”, according to taz. Marincea noted that Lavric used the phrase “Marxist Masoret” on various occasions, alluding to so-called “Jewish Bolshevism” — in other words, the accusation that Jews brought communism to Romania. 

“The extreme right is repeatedly legitimized and supported by politicians with a seat in the Parliament, by some news outlets, and by intellectual, artistic and cultural personalities,” Marincea wrote. “Lavric”, she said, “accepted an invitation to a dubious podcast at which two Holocaust deniers also appeared: Ion Coja and Miron Manega.” According to Marincea, Coja is a former university lecturer, former senator and former head of the Bucharest branch of the former far-right ultranationalist organization Uniunea Vatra Românească. In response to a query for this report, Ion Coja claimed that Marincea was “not an academic” and wrote: “Vatra Românească was not a far-right organization! It was a completely honorable organization.” He rejected the accusation of antisemitism. “The Truth cannot be anti-semitic or anti-romanian,” Coja wrote.

 

Read the full reply to our inquiry by Ion Coja via email on August 9, 2024:

“Mr. Jean-Philipp,

Adina Marincea is not an academic, and Vatra Românească was not a far-right organization! It was a completely honorable organization.

I don’t recall the text I published related to Ms. Adina Marincea. Regarding anti-Semitism, I published a text on my website titled “Why I Cannot Be Anti-Semitic”!

I have published dozens, perhaps hundreds, of texts on delicate subjects: the Legionnaires, Nicolae Ceaușescu, the Romanian-Jewish disputes. I have always strived to respect the truth. THE TRUTH CANNOT BE ANTI-SEMITIC OR ANTI-ROMANIAN.

If I have ever deviated from the path of truth, it was without my intention, and I have been glad when I was corrected. PLEASE READ WHAT I HAVE WRITTEN AND POINT OUT WHERE I HAVE MADE MISTAKES.

Otherwise, I wish you all the best and good health.

Ion Coja”

[Original:
“Domnule Jean-Philipp, numita Adina Marincea nu este academician și nici Vatra Românească nu a fost o organizație de extremă dreaptă! A fost o organizație cu totul onorabilă. 

Nu-mi aduc aminte de textul pe care l-am publicat legat de dna Adina Marincea.

În legătură cu anti-semitismul, am publicat pe site-ul meu un text intitulat „De ce nu pot să fiu anti-semit”!

Am publicat zeci, poate sute de texte pe subiecte delicate: legionarii, Nicolae Ceaușescu, contenciosul româno-evreiesc. Totdeauna m-am străduit să respect adevărul. ADEVĂRUL NU POATE FI ANTI-SEMIT SAU ANTI-ROMÂNESC.

Dacă m-am abătut vreodată de la linia adevărului a fost fără voia mea și m-am bucurat când am fost făcut atent. VĂ ROG SĂ CITIȚI CE AM SCRIS EU ȘI SĂ MĂ FACEȚI ATENT UNDE AM GREȘIT.

În rest, numai bine și sănătate.

ion coja”]

 

Manega is editor-in-chief of the newspaper Certitudinea, which Marincea and the Elie-Wiesel-Institute classify as antisemitic and denialist. Certitudinea is available at many newsstands in Bucharest. According to the Elie Wiesel Institute’s latest antisemitism monitoring report, a complaint was filed against the publication after it was distributed at the Bucharest National Theater in March 2022. The public prosecutor’s office closed the investigation in September 2023 as it did not identify any criminal offense.

Manega is also a signatory of communiqués from the so-called Group for Romania, which critics describe as conspiracy-minded, according to Radio Free Europe. In early 2024, the group published a petition addressed to Russian President Vladimir Putin and appealed for help and a Russian intervention to restore lost Romanian “sovereignty”  and for salvation from a “Judeo-Euro-Atlantic political regime”. Manega was vice president of the Union of Professional Journalists in Romania for many years and was subsequently removed from this post by his colleagues.

 

 

The extreme right-wing newspaper “Certitudinea” (in the back) among other newspapers at a kiosk in Bucharest in April 2024. Photo: Jean-Philipp Baeck

 

Marincea’s reports about Manega and Coja in Libertatea in the beginning of March 2023 made her a target of this far-right ecosystem. She observed how the smears and verbal abuse started flooding in on nationalist-leaning websites and on several Telegram channels. “The fact that I also pointed out the far-right connections to intellectual and influential voices really upset them,” Marincea said.

The avalanche of verbal abuse online probably began with the reactions of publicist Manega and intellectual Coja. On March 4, 2023, Coja posted Marincea’s text on his blog without comment — his audience understood and reacted with wild comments targeting the Elie Wiesel Institute and Marincea. In response to a query for this report, Coja rejected the accusation.

On the same day, Manega wrote an article on the website of his newspaper, Certitudinea, criticizing the Elie Wiesel Institute for allegedly resembling the secret service and formulating a subtly sexist quote in which a man tells his wife that she is either stupid or ill-advised. “He used the quote to belittle me as an uneducated girl,” Marincea said. 

A screenshot of Miron Manega’s Reaction to an article of Adina Marincea, published on the website of his newspaper Certitudinea on March, 4th 2023.

Screenshot: Jean-Philipp Baeck

 

One comment under Manega’s post is more explicitly antisemitic. It relativizes the Holocaust and calls the Elie Wiesel Institute a “Bolshevik commissariat” that is lying and must be stopped. He accuses Marincea of demanding Holocaust textbooks for children and of being “Sorosist”, which serves the antisemitic trope that the Hungarian-American billionaire and benefactor Georg Soros is behind everything in the world. 

 

Antisemitic commentary below the reaction of Miron Manega.

Screenshot: Jean-Philipp Baeck

 

A day later, on March 5, Manega wrote a post on the website Active News. The comments underneath discuss whether Marincea was vaccinated and make antisemitic remarks: “I look forward to the union of Romanians against the Zionist structures in Romania and the unraveling of all Israeli agents (with Jewish names and current names changed), traitors to Romania, from television, the press, SRI, politics, banks.” Miron Manega did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

 

Other far-right portals also pick up on Manega’s original Certitudinea text, including buciumul.ro, the website of the Ogoranu Foundation, one of the most active and radical neo-legionary organizations. The name of the organization commemorates Ion Gavrila Ogoranu, a member of the fascist and antisemitic Legionary Movement.

Manega’s text is also mirrored on the portal Incorect Politic. Here, the comments directed at Marincea are particularly clear and contain antisemitism and sexism. They say, for example, that “the Jews will spread these lies with war criminals”. Another commentator says that the “‘poor’ Jews” receive “fat salaries from public funds”. Marincea is said to be a “(sexually speaking) frustrated woman who devours public money”. 

One user makes a particularly crude claim: He allegedly saw Marincea get into Andrew Tate’s car outside a club in December 2022. Tate, an American-British influencer known for misogynistic views, moved to Romania a few years ago. He is on trial there; the public prosecutor’s office has accused him of human trafficking and rape.

Establishing a connection between Marincea and Tate is absurd and serves the sole purpose of demeaning and discrediting her. Nevertheless, a day later, the portal Incorect Politic takes up the idea and dedicates a separate article to the story of lies under the keyword: “AdinaGate”. According to annual reports by the Wiesel Institute, the website disseminates extremist anti-Semitic and racist articles that incite hatred against Roma and Jews. 

In response to a query for this report, Sterie Ciumetti answered as chief-editor for the publication Incorect Politic. He rejected all accusations of denialism and antisemitism. At the same time, he repeated antisemitic narratives, wrote of “censorship attempts”, that “mainstream media is dishonest and boring” and called Elie Wiesel an “imposter”. The Elie Wiesel Institute commits ‘cultural terrorism’, intimidates public administrations to rename schools and streets, denigrates “certain journalists and smears them with unproven accusations”, resulting in damage to their image. “And they say we are committing antisemitism by saying Jews control the politics of Romania? Then the truth is antisemitic,” Ciumetti wrote.

 

Read the full reply to our inquiry by Sterie Ciumetti via eail on August 9, 2024 [hyperlinks have been edited to archived versions]:

“Greetings,

I hear you are accusing my publication of antisemitic, racist content, denialism and neo-legionary ideology. Could you provide actual examples of these deeds so we can discuss on a case-by-case situation and not rely on loose interpretations?  This would be a first step in having an honest intellectual debate.

Furthermore, what even is “neo-legionary ideology”? The Legionary Movement is a historical movement that no longer exists, it doesn’t have a hierarchy of leadership, no longer has nests or Brotherhoods of the Cross, as its youth branch was called. There are barely even a few old legionaries alive, over 90 years old. There is no legionary political party or NGOs operating in the country (except for a bizarre individual called Serban Suru, who fashions himself a legionary leader, but is believed to be a clown and an usurper by the Romanian nationalists), we are discussing a part of history. You can have a positive or negative opinion on a part of history without “inciting hatred” and whatnot. We can talk about whether or not the Legionary Movement was “good” or “bad” but for the moment let us focus on your allegations.

What even is this accusation you are fashioning of spreading hatred? “You are one of the loudest voices spreading  hatred against Adina Marincea and the Elie-Wiesel-Institute.” How does one discern when hatred comes into play? What is the difference between disgust and hatred? Where is the border between antipathy or hatred? When does one end and the other begins? To have this “hatred” concept in the courts and in law is completely unhinged and unfair, you cannot quantify an emotion and you sure as hell can’t ban emotions, no matter what laws are passed. Humans will continue to love, hate, be joyful, sorrowful and experience the wide palette of emotions God has invested us with.

Have you looked into this Elie Wiesel institute you are getting information from? Do you know what its attributes are? Its prerogatives? Do you know what manner of cultural terrorism they commit by intimidating public administrations to rename schools and streets, how they are denigrating certain journalists, smearing them with unproven accusations, resulting in damage to their image? How they managed to prevent events dedicated to launching books, how they coerced the Romanian Academy into no longer organizing an event dedicated to the scientist Nicolae Paulescu, discoverer of insulin? They also managed to make the Ministry of Defence remove YouTube videos where the army choir sang certain songs. These are just a few examples. And they say we are committing antisemitism by saying Jews control the politics of Romania? Then the truth is antisemitic. Also, did you know there is a Christian Jewish organization in Romania that publicly responded to the allegations of the Elie Wiesel institute and defended the Romanian people? [ https://web.archive.org/web/20240812095758/http://www.certitudinea.ro/articole/presa/view/comunicat-de-presA-s-a-constituit-comunitatea-evreilor-crestini-nicolae-steinhardt-din-romania ]

Let’s go over this “denialism” allegation. Who is it raised against? It’s leveled against our respectable publication, while the former president of Israel, Shimon Peres, publicly thanked Romania for saving 400.000 Jews from the second world war. The same quantity of Jews that the illegitimate Elie Wiesel institute is accusing us of having genocided. Look up Wilhelm Filderman, who was the president of the Jewish communities of Romania at that time, he wrote about how Marshall Antonescu saved Jews by giving them passports in blank. So how can you deny something that has been proven not to exist? Proven not by “antisemites”, but by Jews themselves!

Furthermore, why do we believe an institute that is named after the imposter Elie Wiesel? Why imposter? Gruner Mikloș, Auschwitz survivor that used to know the real Elie Wiesel in the camps, wrote about his meeting after the war with his former camp colleague. He writes that he could not recognize Elie Wiesel, that it was not his old colleague, then he asked him to show him his tattoo, which Gruner knew by heart (A-7713), and Elie refused.  [ https://web.archive.org/web/20240812095810/https://jurnalul.ro/stiri/observator/un-supravietuitor-al-holocaustului-elie-wiesel-nu-este-detinutul-a-7713-590048.html ]

This institute is a mirror of the American ADL. Are you familiar with the history of the Anti-Defamation League? How it came to be? There was this Jewish pedophile murderer, Leo Frank, convicted by a Grand Jury in 1913 for having raped and murdered Mary Phagan. Leo tried to blame it on a black man. He was sentenced to death and his execution was postponed because Jews intervened and attempted to overturn the decision. Later these Jews formed the ADL. Are we to seriously give credit and act like the word of the ADL has any real value when the entire organization was formed to defend a convicted pedophile murderer?

What has your publication written about the genital mutilation of Jewish children? Do you agree with this practice, do you believe it’s their ‘religious right’ to cut off the foreskin from toddlers that cannot refuse and resist? Is this worse than “inciting hatred” by writing words on the Internet? I know you can’t answer this, your job is on the line. But we both know the truth.

Because in our day and age young people no longer watch televised news or read mainstream publications, we see them gravitate towards alternative, independent and politically incorrect media. This phenomenon will continue despite censorship attempts, mostly because mainstream media is dishonest and boring. Hence why the attacks against independent journalists are ramping up. But it’s like trying to stop an avalanche, mate.

Yours truly,
Sterie Ciumetti
Chief-Editor of INCORECT POLITIC

P.S.: I’ve also contacted Andreea Malva to get her statement, since the Stratinfo post you quoted from was signed by her. This is what Andreea had to say:

As an answer to your manipulation, these phrases taken out of context to mobilize the planned narrative are not the basis of “accusations” to which I should respond as you mention, but radically cosmopolitan political positions disguised under the cover of a typical Western pseudo-exercise of moralistic journalism.

The reality is that independent, patriotic and Christian journalists from Eastern Europe are the target of all the attacks coming from the Mass Media subsidized by public money in parallel with the dubious funds of cross-border organizations such as OSF (Soroș), which of course have every interest in silencing free and committed discourse on the side of Romania’s national and popular interest.

It is not we who are attacking the religious, moral, social and historical values of our past, but the foreign organizations which occupy a dominant propaganda space in society, in the continuity of the one ruthlessly administered by the Judeo-Bolshevik column which took over Romania after the Second World War, organizing the genocide of 1.5 million victims among peasants and Christians!

  Today, more than ever, independent patriotic journalism is the last bastion against the ideological and legal terrorism practiced by the cross-border organizations directed by the Freemasonic circles that work and manage the mainstream information space in the pay of globalist corporatism under the US flag and its diplomatic arm, global Zionism!

It is true that Adina Marincea’s action, piloted by the terrorist institute Elie Wiesel, generates in Romanian society a broad anti-Jewish reaction, a kind of generalized “enough is enough!” expressed at all levels of society! That is why we are energetically and determinedly combating the disinformation and ideological terrorism of these foreign offices, which are trying to rewrite our history by force of institutional pressure and corruption, introducing into society the foundations of post-national social engineering!

And yet, being responsible journalists, we have always shown our support for the cause of the Semitic people in occupied Palestine, not having ‘racist’ and exclusive tendencies as you have probably noticed among the banderists you so much cherish in the West, displaying your racism against Russia without complexes!

In conclusion, western journalists no longer have the capacity to enter a contest of ideas with independent Eastern European journalists because the western journalist committed professional suicide when he no longer positioned himself on the side of the nation or its people. Here in the east we still have a moral dimension to our profession, a Christian dimension directly drawn from the greco-roman legacy of Europe.”

 

“These people have quite a bit of followers among the far right,” Marincea said. “The fact that they wrote about me drew the attention of different far right groups.” . On March 7, 2023, Marincea published another article on Libertatea. In the report, she talked about the role of SOS Romania politician Diana Soșoacă, but also about the case of Vasile Zărnescu, a former colonel of the Romanian intelligence service, SRI. Zărnescu was one of the first people ever to be convicted of Holocaust denial by a court in Romania, although a Bucharest appeals court decided on March 31, 2022 to leave it at a simple warning. Marincea reported on how Zărnescu continued to deny the Holocaust almost a year later.

Zărnescu, the former SRI colonel, reacted to Marincea’s report on the website nationalisti.ro.Zărnescu called Marincea a “slut” and a “sow” and referred to his book, “The Holocaust – the diabolical lie.” Zărnescu also targeted the Elie Wiesel Institute and accused the organisation of perpetrating a “cultural, economic, financial, demographic, spiritual genocide against Romania. The 3,200 Jews in Romania — scholarship holders from outside — are constantly attacking us and we are in legitimate defense!” Zărnescu said: “The institute is not actually researching the Holocaust because there was no such thing.” 

The former intelligence service officer signed his article with his former title as “Col. SRI Vasile Zarnescu” and with the words “Death to the enemies!”, which Marincea interpreted as a call for violence against her. “To me, this article was the most direct threat and incitement to hate and violence against me,” she said. 

Asked for a comment for this report, Zărnescu replied: “I am not insulting Adina Marincea; I am simply describing her (…) Adina Marincea is neither an academic nor a journalist but merely an employee of the I.N.S.H.-‘E.W.’”. (The initials refer to the official acronym in Romanian of the Elie Wiesel Institute: INSHR-EW.) Zărnescu continued: “(…) In other words, she is a media mercenary. As, indeed, are all the employees of the so-called “National Institute for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania – ‘Elie Wiesel.’

“Furthermore, it is internationally known that Elie Wiesel was ‘a great false witness,’ a great impostor, ‘a terrible fraud,’ as Noam Chomsky described him (…) As for myself, I have not denied the ‘Holocaust,’ with a capital H or lowercase h, because I have not studied it; instead, I have studied Holocaust propaganda. The analysis of this propaganda necessarily leads to the conclusion that the “Holocaust” did not exist (…)

“(…) In any case, the National Movement developing today in Romania will lead to the banning of the I.N.S.H.R.-“E.W.” and the expulsion of all mercenaries of this fraudulent institute, as well as the repeal of repressive laws.”

 

Read the full reply to our inquiry by Vasile Zărnescu via E-Mail on August 11, 2024 [hyperlinks have been edited to archived versions, attachment not included]:

“Dear Mr. Baeck,

In Romanian, there is a saying: “Don’t waste your barley on geese!” In the New Testament (cf. Matthew 7:6), as well as in some ancient writers, there is a similar admonition: “Do not throw pearls before swine!” In this sense, I am not insulting Adina Marincea; I am simply DESCRIBING her.

I do not know what you mean by the phrase “the academic and journalist Adina Marincea.” Adina Marincea is neither an academic nor a journalist; she is merely an employee of I.N.S.H.-“E.W.,” paid to produce, on command, such compilations as this one: [ https://web.archive.org/web/20240812102645/https://www.libertatea.ro/opinii/cand-vom-ajunge-la-putere-promisiunea- ]. In other words, she is a media mercenary. Just like all the employees of the so-called “National Institute for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania – ‘Elie Wiesel.'”

Furthermore, it is internationally known that Elie Wiesel was “a great false witness,” a great impostor, “a terrible fraud,” as Noam Chomsky describes him (cf. [ https://web.archive.org/web/20240812102612/https://dailyfreepress.com/2015/10/23/letter-to-the-editor-elie-wiesel-not-a-champion-for-human-rights/ ] ).

But it’s not just Noam Chomsky who describes him this way; many other Jewish authors, such as Norman Finkelstein (cf. [ https://web.archive.org/web/20240812102621/https://ziarulnatiunea.ro/2011/06/16/chiar-si-evreii-au-demascat-minciunile-lui-wiesel/ ] ), Daniel McGowan (cf. “Finally an honest look at the Great Wiesel” on [ https://web.archive.org/web/20240812102553/https://www.amazon.com/review/R3SJHTU9QF1NB3 ] ), Isaac Asimov, and others do as well. I won’t even mention the non-Jewish authors like Paul Rassinier, Robert Faurisson, and many others. I won’t bring up the Jewish and non-Jewish authors who have denied the Holocaust, as they have their own website.

As for myself, I have not denied the “Holocaust,” with a capital H or lowercase h, because I have not studied it; instead, I have studied Holocaust propaganda. The analysis of this propaganda necessarily leads to the conclusion that the “Holocaust” did not exist. The very introduction and use of the term “holocaust” in propaganda attests to the non-existence of the alleged phenomenon so named, because the term “holocaust” is a Greek word, a word that Jewish propagandists did not have in their lexicon and which, now, because it has been discredited by revisionist authors, they are trying to discreetly replace with the term “shoah”!

However, I am surprised that, like Adina Marincea, who truncates quotes to suit her narrative, you read my article selectively, which you referenced through this link: [ https://web.archive.org/web/20240812100144/https://www.nationalisti.ro/colonelul-sri-vasile-zarnescu-atacat-de-fufa-adina-marincea/ ] . But I also mention three other links there, which you skipped over: [ https://web.archive.org/web/20240812100134/https://www.academia.edu/45190092/Vasile_I_Zarnescu_HOLOCAUSTUL_gogorita_diabolica ] ; [ https://web.archive.org/web/20240812100204/https://www.incorectpolitic.com/un-nou-proces-impotriva-lui-vasile-zarnescu-cazul-vasile-i-zarnescu-contra-alexandru-florian/ ]; [ https://web.archive.org/web/20230928141559/https://www.incorectpolitic.com/justitia-stalinista-a-romaniei-procesul-colonelului-vasile-zarnescu-concluzii-scrise-suplimentare/ ].

It is essential that you read these, and only then should you write about me. In any case, the National Movement that is developing today in Romania will lead to the banning of I.N.S.H.R.-“E.W.” and the expulsion of all mercenaries of this fraudulent institute, as well as the repeal of repressive laws.

With scientific collegiality,

Colonel (Ret.) Vasile I. Zărnescu

P.S. As additional reading, to give you a proper overview, I am also attaching a file with a selection of my articles.”

[Original:

Dragă domnule Baeck,

În limb română există un îndemn: „Nu strica orzul pe gîște!” În Noul Testament (cf. Matei, 7,6), precum și la unii scriitori antici există un îndemn similar: „Nu arunca mărgăritare înaintea porcilor!” În acest sens, eu nu o insult pe Adina Marincea, ci o DESCRIU.

Nu știu ce înțelegeți dvs. prin formularea „the academic and journalist Adina Marincea”. Adina Marincea nu este nici academician, nici jurnalist, ci doar o angajată a I.N.S.H.-„E.W.”, plătită să confecționeze, la comandă, asemenea compilații, ca aici: [  https://web.archive.org/web/20240812102645/https://www.libertatea.ro/opinii/cand-vom-ajunge-la-putere-promisiunea- ] Adică este o mercenară de presă. Ca, de altfel, toți angajați de la așa-zisul „institut național de studiere a holocaustului din România – „Elie Wiesel“.

Apoi, este de notorietate internațională că Elie Wiesel a fost „un mare martor fals“, un mare impostor, „a terrible fraud“, cum îl califică Noam Chomsky (cf. [ https://web.archive.org/web/20240812102612/https://dailyfreepress.com/2015/10/23/letter-to-the-editor-elie-wiesel-not-a-champion-for-human-rights/ ] ).

Dar nu numai Noam Chomsky îl descrie astfel, ci și mulți alți autori iudei, precum Norman Finkelstein (cf. [ https://web.archive.org/web/20240812102621/https://ziarulnatiunea.ro/2011/06/16/chiar-si-evreii-au-demascat-minciunile-lui-wiesel/ ] ), Daniel McGowan (cf. „Finally an honest look at the Great Wiesel”, pe [ https://web.archive.org/web/20240812102553/https://www.amazon.com/review/R3SJHTU9QF1NB3 ] ), Isaak Asimov și alții. Nu mai amintesc de autorii dintre goyimi, ca Paul Rassinier, Robert Faurisson și mulți alții. Despre autorii iudei și goyimi care au negat holocaustul nu mai amintesc, fiindcă au un site pe internet.

În ceea ce mă privește, eu nu am negat „Holocaustul”, cu H mare sau cu h mic, fiindcă nu l-am studiat, ci am studiat propaganda holocaustică. Din analiza acestei propagande rezultă cu necesitate inexistența „Holocaustului”. Chiar introducerea și folosirea în propagandă a termenului „holocaust” atestă inexistența pretinsului fenomen numit astfel, deoarece termenul „holocaust” este cuvînt grecesc, cuvînt pe care propagandiștii jidovi nu-l aveau în lexic și pe care, acum, fiindcă a fost compromis de autorii revizioniști, jidovii caută să-l înlocuiască, discret, cu termenul „shoah”!

Mă surprinde, însă, faptul că, la fel ca Adina Marincea, care trunchiază citatele spre a-i ieși ei pasiența, ați citit pe sărite articolul meu, pe care l-ați indicat prin link: [ https://web.archive.org/web/20240812100144/https://www.nationalisti.ro/colonelul-sri-vasile-zarnescu-atacat-de-fufa-adina-marincea/ ]. Dar eu menționez acolo încă trei linkuri, peste care ați sărit:  [ https://web.archive.org/web/20240812100134/https://www.academia.edu/45190092/Vasile_I_Zarnescu_HOLOCAUSTUL_gogorita_diabolica] ; [ https://web.archive.org/web/20240812100204/https://www.incorectpolitic.com/un-nou-proces-impotriva-lui-vasile-zarnescu-cazul-vasile-i-zarnescu-contra-alexandru-florian/ ] ; [ https://web.archive.org/web/20230928141559/https://www.incorectpolitic.com/justitia-stalinista-a-romaniei-procesul-colonelului-vasile-zarnescu-concluzii-scrise-suplimentare/ ].

Este esențial să le citiți pe acestea și abia, apoi, să mai scrieți despre mine. Oricum, Mișcarea Națională care se dezvoltă, azi, în România va duce la interzicerea I.N.S.H.R.-„E.W.” și la expulzarea tuturor mercenarilor acestui institut-impostură, precum și la abrogarea legilor liberticide.

Cu colegialitate științifică,

Colonel (rtg.) Vasile I. Zărnescu”

P.S. Ca lectură suplimentară, pentru a vă face o corectă privire de ansamblu, vă mai dau, în ataș, un fișier cu o selecție din articolele mele.]

 

For her report in March 2023 and other articles, Marincea regularly receives abusive and scurrilous comments by neo-fascist groups and channels on Telegram. One example is the channel “Stratinfo”, where Marincea is a regular target. Stratinfo is said to have links to the website incorectpolitic.com. In a post from March 7, 2023, Stratinfo on Telegram states: “The neo-Bolshevik recidivist Adina Marincea is taking turborepressive action against all Christian conservatives in Romania, knowing full well that she works for the Elie Wiesel Institute and that it is financed with Soros money!”

In response to a request for comment for this report, Andreea Malva for Stratinfo rejected the accusation and explained that the phrases were “taken out of context”. At the same time, Malva elaborates theories about a “Judeo-Bolshevik column” and “Mass Media subsidized by public money in parallel with the dubious funds of cross-border organizations such as OSF (Soroș)”. Malva states there was “disinformation and ideological terrorism” by “these foreign offices”. Marincea herself would generate “a broad anti-Jewish reaction”, which was “piloted by the terrorist institute Elie Wiesel”.

Read Andreea Malva’s reply to our inquiry contained in the email from Sterie Ciumetti, received on August 9, 2024:

 

On a Telegram channel called Nicadori Squad, which is neo-fascist and neo-legionary, Marincea is personally attacked on the same day of her report on March 7, 2023: “Adina Marincea didn’t take her pills and relapsed.” The channel had around 900 followers as of the summer of 2024 Its name refers to death squads of the Legionary Movement. Marincea regularly has become the subject of personal attacks on the channel — even without cause. Nicadore Squad could not be reached for comment.

Threats are becoming more explicit and violent

On August 4, 2023, Marincea wrote about the radicalization of young Romanians, links to the neo-legionary Ogoranu Foundation and a right-wing attack during the Pride Parade in Bucharest. The parade took place in Bucharest on July 29, 2023 and was the largest Pride march up to that point, with 25,000 participants. Marincea reported that there was an attack on volunteers at a related event in Izor Park in Bucharest two days earlier. Two young men and a young woman had first threatened and then beaten young activists. 

The police later found banned material with legionary propaganda and stickers on the attackers — stickers of a type that, according to Marincea, had previously been advertised several times on the neo-legionary channel, which was closely linked to the Ogoranu Foundation. Marincea does not give the name in her report in Libertatea, but it is the “Nicadori Squad” Telegram channel, which had also repeatedly announced actions at the Pride march.

“On the very day of the first Pride violence, several neo-fascist, neo-legionary and far-right Ultras channels published calls for action against anti-fascist or pro-LGBTQ+ groups and messages,” Marincea wrote. 

However, “Nicadori Squad” made another claim in connection with the action in the park: Adina Marincea allegedly had been seen “selling neo-Marxist books in Pride Park”. The channel also circulated a photo of one of the stalls with two young activists.

In other posts on the channel, Marincea was insulted in an antisemitic manner as a “Jew”. Another image was also shared in which a person is tortured to death, impaled on a stake, accompanied by the comment: “Let’s do this to all these LGBT Marxists”. ( Marincea had previously been branded an “LGBT Marxist” herself.)

Antisemitic message calling journalist Adina Marincea “Das jude”.
 

Screenshot: Adina Marincea

 

Marincea stated that she was not present in the park on any of the days. However, the message associated with the mention of her name and the physical attack on the activists is threatening in any case.

The hatred does not fade away

On November 12, 2023, the website Incorect Politic published a sexist poem about Marincea for no apparent reason, calling her a “prostitute”, among other things. The Telegram channel “Nicadori Squad” shared the post with a “dedication to the ragged journalist”.  

One of Marincea’s most recent articles caused another outburst of anger from the far right. On April 23, 2024, she published a detailed elaboration on the digital networks of the far-right scene in Romania, this time on the online portal context.ro. The article was quickly shared on the Telegram channel of Incorect Politic and provoked sexist and antisemitic responses. “I pee on the bug Elie Wiesel. And Fuck that Kyke,” read one of the comments, along with an antisemitic slogan.

On April 26, 2024, a separate article on the website Incorect Politi” said of Marincea’s article: “It is reminiscent of the style of the former secretary general of the Bolshevik propaganda newspaper “Scânteia”, Silviu Brucan (Saul Bruckner).” She is referred to as a “researcher” in quotation marks to discredit her: “‘Researcher’ Adina Marincea from the Elie Wiesel Terror Institute publishes an insane article about an extremist network operating on Telegram,” Incorect Politic said. Elsewhere, a link was drawn to the taz author and historian William Totok: “While the watchdog William Totok used the label ‘neolegionary publication’ in 2018, today the Elie Wiesel Terror Institute, through the ‘researcher’ Adina Marincea, makes us ‘antisemitic neo-fascists’. Each of these labels is an additional medal and a confirmation that we are on the right track.”

The commentators blew the same horn: “The Elie Wiesel Terrorist Institute must be abolished!” one comment read. “As must the anti-Romanian laws of the Zionist Jews!” 

On the Telegram channel of the online portal Rost, which AUR co-chair and senator Claudiu Tarziu co-edits, it said on April 27: “Following the Bolshevik model, Adina Marincea, researcher at the Elie Wiesel National Institute for Holocaust Studies in Romania, drew up a new list of “enemies of the people.” Tarziu did not respond to a request for comment.

On the channel of the football ultra group Casus Belli, Marincea and the institute are accused of spreading “fake news”, with similar accusations from the extreme right-wing group Comunitatea Identitară România, which calls the institute “Bolshevik” and “anti-Romanian” and accuses it of “cultural terrorism”. Casus Belli and Comunitatea Identitară could not be reached for comment.

A supporter group of SOS politician Șosoaca on Telegram, who is mentioned by Marincea in her analysis, also responded. A post from April 27, 2024 does not directly target Marincea, but the director of the Elie Wiesel Institute, Alexandru Florian. According to the post, he heads the “organized crime group ‘Elie Wiesel’” and has been “terrorizing” public life in Romania for over two decades. “Florian behaves in Romania like a Gauleiter from Hitler’s Germany. He accuses everyone, every person, every public organization, every legally established group, every opinion leader and every intellectual of antisemitism,” the post reads. 

It is a tone that is likely to become even more established with the success of the SOS Romania and AUR parties in Romania.

The attacks against Marincea seek to intimidate her. However, disinformation attacks against journalists also aim at discrediting their work. While this type of harassment campaigns have an important contextual component, with posts on social media that appeal to the immediate reality of the country or region in which they occur, the vast majority of them are part of broader narratives that have been observed in similar attempts to silence journalists in other European countries.

To understand the type of threats and, more importantly, the type of smear narratives that aim to discredit Marincea’s work, the researchers teamed up with a group of data analysts to investigate the Telegram channels, some of which were sharing smears and threatening content against the journalist.

Based on the research that the journalist herself conducted on far-right groups in Romania (Graphic X), we selected several of the main Telegram channels identified in Marincea’s network analysis: Comunitatea Identitara Romania, Casus Belli, SOS Romania, NicodoriSquad, Romania (Thracia 88), Fundatia Ogoranu, Neamunit, Grupul Sfinții Închisorilor, Ortodoxia (CredintaOrtodoxa), Nimic fără Dumnezeu și TpT.

Network analysis by Adina Marincea for her article in Context.ro: April 23, 2024.

Once the main channels were identified, the researchers resorted to a series of OSINT (open-source intelligence) techniques. First, they scraped the history of posts that were shared on these channels. This step resulted in a dataset containing 57,379 messages (Graphic X)

	Channel	Number of Posts
1	CredintaOrtodoxa	31,054
2	casusbelli2021	7,066
3	sfintiidininchisorigrup	6,277
4	FundatiaOgoranu	3,670
5	comunitatea	2,966
6	NimicfaraDumnezeu	2,810
7	politicincorect	2,225
8	NicadoriSquad1933	1,040
9	ortodoxINFO	100
10	SOSRomania	88
11	sfintiidininchisori	83

Graphic X: Table breaking down the number of posts per Telegram channel used in our narrative and topic analysis

This dataset allowed the researchers to conduct two types of analysis. The first was a narrative analysis using Large Language Models (LLMs). This analysis entailed three phases to extract the narratives:

1) Chunking: The dataset is split into smaller segments or chunks; 

2) Summarization of the content and topic of the segments;

3) Querying, in which the following questions were submitted to the LLM:

• What are the main narratives against Adina Marincea?
• What other ideologies do these channels seem to support, and can you back it with examples?

The second type of analysis focused more on the overall topics being discussed in these groups (Graphic X). For this analysis, the researchers used Natural Language Processing (NLP). The dataset was primarily in Romanian, but since the NLP corpus for this language is more limited, it was necessary to translate the dataset into English.

Graphic X: Keywords were clustered into different topics, and assigned a value according to the frequency of use.

The main narratives circulating within some of these Telegram groups and channels include skepticism towards mainstream media and government actions. 

Nationalist and traditionalist ideologies are prominently supported, as evidenced by references to historical movements and events. For example, The Legionary Movement, a former ultra-nationalist and fascist organization, is commemorated, highlighting the channels’ nationalist leanings. The posts reflect on historical events such as Stalin-sanctioned deportations from Basarabia and Northern Bucovina during World War II and its aftermath, or the assassination of leaders of the “White Guard” army and their fight against Soviet Russia. In this sense, the posts seem to tap into the collective fears in Romania of the former autocratic communist regime, with frequent references to anti-communist sentiments. 

They also promote traditional family values and oppose LGBTQIA+ rights. Events like the “March of Normality” are advocated, reinforcing a commitment to preserving traditional social structures. In this vein, there’s a strong presence of Christian Orthodox beliefs within these narratives. This religious content often intersects with the nationalist and traditionalist themes.

The content shared in their feeds also has a strong anti-establishment sentiment, particularly Euroscepticism and anti-globalism. NATO is frequently criticized, with negative labels such as “Nazi officials responsible” used to describe its leaders. Additionally, the EU’s actions concerning Ukraine and Moldova are criticized, and there is skepticism towards climate change initiatives, as indicated by a reference to “climate taxes.”

This context is important to understand, since most of the harassment and smear campaign against Marincea pivots around all these topics.

Main narratives

The main narratives against Marincea seem to focus on her work related to far-right extremism, youth and online de-radicalization. She is portrayed as being against what they described as the “rediscovery of national history” and the promotion of nationalist ideas by the youth. There is also a suggestion that she is part of efforts, along with the EU, NATO, and the Romanian government, to suppress the promotion of the former Legionary Movement and the production of nationalist informational materials. Additionally, she is accused of being involved in the “combat against anti-Semitism”. Overall, the sentiment included in this narrative analysis is that she opposes Romanian nationalist and traditionalist values and is working to undermine them through her academic and professional activities.

Other narratives against Marincea seem to revolve around accusations of her being overly aggressive and unreasonable in her alleged activism, particularly in relation to feminist issues. The messages suggest that she is imposing her agenda and unfairly targeting individuals who do not support her cause. The posts also contain various other topics unrelated to Marincea, including anti-communism, LGBTQIA+ rights, immigration and other social and political issues, often from a nationalist and conservative perspective.

All the narratives have a discursive tone. However, it is important to note that the attempts to discredit Marincea’s work also include a strong misogynist component. They call her “slut” or “sow” (female pig in Romanian). Such misogynistic  attacks against female journalists have also been observed across the spectrum of case studies included in this project, as well as in several publications on the topic published by other international organizations (Link to UNESCO report).

On top of that, antisemitic narratives against journalists — including those against Marincea — are widespread, such as we saw in our case study of the journalist Alexander Roth in Germany.

“Spreading fake news”

The allegation of “spreading fake news” is one of the most common narratives against journalists and fact-checkers, and it has two characteristic components. On the one hand, this narrative seeks to discredit the journalistic work published by a specific media outlet or journalist by labeling it as fake news. In other words, it aims to discredit the message. The second component is the discrediting of the journalist or the media outlet itself. In this case, the focus is on the “messenger”, not their work, who is accused of spreading fake news.

Disinformation narratives are adapted to each specific context. In the case of Marincea, some of the messages obtained from the Telegram channels, which the journalist herself had identified in her work on the far right in Romania, claimed that her reports are biased and aimed at discrediting Romanian nationalist groups by, according to these groups, falsely portraying them as neo-Nazi sympathizers. 

 Quote: 🤡 Adina Marincea, o angajată a Institutului Fake News E.W., a “pus informațiile cap la cap”, după o muncă de câteva luni, plătită de statul român, deci de noi, și i-a dat rezultatul final: “ultrașii neonaziști din grupul Casus Belli îl reabilitează pe criminalul de război Mircea Vulcănescu”.

În primul rând îi transmitem că oricât ne-ar flutura în față o sentință a celui mai criminal și mincinos regim din istoria omenirii, adică cel comunist, Mircea Vulcănescu rămâne un EROU – MARTIR AL LUI HRISTOS, care s-a așezat pe betonul ud, iarna, în izolare și frig la Aiud, pentru a salva viața unui tânăr care a dormit pe el și s-a salvat, fapt care i-a atras boala și moartea.

🔸În fața Lui Dumnezeu nu există funcție politică, doar FAPTE🔸, falșilor care ocultați istoria.

În postul Paștelui v-ați găsit să atacați sfinții..

🇹🇩Salutăm cu respect toate celelalte grupuri și canale, menționate în acel articol penibil, care au apărat onoarea lui Mircea Vulcănescu.

☦Sfinților din închisori, rugați-vă pentru noi!

Translation:

🤡 Adina Marincea, an employee of the Fake News Institute E.W., “put the information together” after working for several months, paid by the Romanian state, hence by us, and presented the final result: “the neo-Nazi ultras from the Casus Belli group are rehabilitating the war criminal Mircea Vulcănescu.”

First of all, we would like to tell her that no matter how much she waves in our faces a sentence from the most criminal and deceitful regime in human history, namely the communist regime, Mircea Vulcănescu remains a HERO – MARTYR OF CHRIST, who laid himself on the cold concrete, in winter, in isolation and cold at Aiud, to save the life of a young man who slept on him and was saved, which led to his illness and death.

🔸Before God, there is no political office, only DEEDS🔸, you false ones who obscure history.

You chose the time of Lent to attack the saints…

🇹🇩 We respectfully salute all the other groups and channels mentioned in that pathetic article, who defended the honor of Mircea Vulcănescu.

☦ Saints from the prisons, pray for us!

Another message shared on this channel accuses Marincea and the organizations she works for of inciting acts of vandalism through her articles, which are labeled as fake news. It suggests that her work has a corrupting influence on youth, leading them to commit acts of vandalism against symbols of national importance, such as the statue of Mircea Vulcănescu.

  Translation:

❌ INSHREW incites reckless children to acts of extremist vandalism.

Following the fake news articles published by Adina Marincea, an employee of INSHREW, the statue of Mircea Vulcănescu has been vandalized.

Children, immature and naive, are being corrupted by the hate-inciting discourse of this employee.

“Foreign agent” or “traitor”

The labeling of journalists as “foreign agents” or “traitors” is one of the most widespread narratives in Europe, according to the cases we have analyzed. It is a discourse that seeks to discredit the work of the journalist or media outlet by claiming that they serve foreign interests or, worse, that they undermine the interests of the country itself. This type of discourse is particularly dangerous in certain contexts because it labels the journalist, fact-checker or media outlet as the “enemy” in the eyes of a segment of the population. The “demonization” of the journalist legitimizes any attack against them.

In the case of Romania, the nationalist identitarian groups identified in this case portray Adina Marincea and the Elie Wiesel Institute, the institution she works for, as “anti-Romanian” entities that engage in “cultural terrorism”.

For example, they claim that her writings propagate anti-Romanian sentiments by framing Romanian nationalists as a threat. They also depict Marincea as a foreign agent working against Romanian interests, suggesting that she is financed by “foreign entities” like Soros to suppress conservative Christian voices in Romania.

 

They also accuse Marincea of promoting communism and a totalitarian regime.

There are other sets of narratives across Europe that tap into fears of the past in countries that have been subjected to authoritarianism or colonialism. In this case, they claim that Marincea seeks to undermine Romania’s historical figures and national identity, accusing her of promoting a totalitarian regime that would persecute those who do not agree with her views. It alleges that her writings are filled with Marxist jargon and misrepresent Romanian nationalism as inherently harmful.

 

Translation:

The BOLSHEVIK Elie Wiesel Institute must be disbanded! We have said it before and we say it again! This anti-Romanian institute, which practices cultural terrorism, claims to be engaged in research. Besides forcefully imposing their views on history, these political operatives also propagate hatred against Romanian nationalist organizations and alternative media.

A lady named Adina Marincea wrote a lengthy article about the danger posed by Romanian nationalists when they defended the cultural figure Mircea Vulcănescu. In addition to the usual blatant lies and the typical neomarxist jargon, the text suggests that the author put in a lot of work and calculations, only to loudly proclaim that nationalism is bad!

Her effort is not free; like all the employees at the institute, she is generously paid from public funds, from our taxes, to propagate anti-Romanianism! However, their attacks make us happy, as it means we are on the right path!

Could she be going through menopause?

The repeat neo-Bolshevik offender Adina Marincea is engaging in turbo-repressive actions against all Christian conservatives in Romania, knowing that she works for the Elie Wiesel Institute and is funded by Soros! Given the case details, the coherence of her political struggle leaves me perplexed… From the rhetoric used in her article in “Libertatea,” about being a servant to Americans and “Jews,” it seems Adina Marincea simply wants to establish a pedo-Bolshevik dictatorship in Romania that would condemn to death any Romanian who is not interested in this democratic option?! As if we didn’t already have enough problems with internal traitors every day, now we have to deal with undercover foreign agents going through menopause… Seriously? Adina, please, wait until we resolve the issue with the war in Ukraine, and I guarantee we’ll deal with your case too—word of a healthy woman!

Andreea Malva

STRATINFO