Toolkit case: Debunking lies peddled by alleged kingpin Pieter Friedrich

Pieter Friedrich, is currently the most widely discussed name in India as security agencies are trying to uncover his role in the anti-India information warfare after the emergence of his name in the ‘toolkit’ shared by Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg.

The revelations made by the Delhi Police have highlighted his role as an alleged kingpin in waging the disinformation warfare for one and a half decade on directions of Pakistan's ISI.

Despite the Delhi Police making attempts to get a hold of him, he continues to peddle propaganda and attack India through his propaganda channels. He is making back-to-back appearances on leading media outlets as well as posting several tweets to defend himself.

The recently launched Disinfo Lab report titled ‘The Unending War: From Proxy War to Info War Against India’ has dismantled the lies peddled by him at various levels, including his publications, social media posts, declaration of companies, his association with terrorists, and so on and so forth.

An analysis of the Disinfo Lab report and fact check of few previous and current claims made by Pieter Friedrich has unearthed numerous shocking facts.

Soon after the press conference by Delhi Police, Pieter alleged that the main reason behind ‘targetting’ him was his anti-RSS stand. In one of the tweets shared by him on February 16, he stated – “I’ve been targeted because I have emerged as one of North America’s most relentless voices against the rising fascism of the Modi regime and, particularly, the RSS.”

It is to be noted that the domains of RSS and Hindutva are very novel for him and the diversion in theme of campaigns of this ‘expert’ has taken place just a few years ago as the main target of his campaigns, since 2007, was Mahatma Gandhi. Breaking Gandhiji’s statues, delivering hate speeches against him, and publicly abusing him were the major facets of his ‘activism’. The Pieter-Bhinder duo, at numerous instances, even went to the extent of calling the Father of the Nation a ‘racist’, ‘pedophile’, and ‘child rapist’!

The ‘masala’ of RSS/BJP was added to the propaganda content produced by Peiter very recently. Prior to that, there was hardly any mention of the Hindu nationalist organisations in India in his productions. Zee News went through his content produced/published prior to 2014 elections and found that all his productions between 2007-2014 focussed around three broad categories: Khalistan, Kashmir, and Gandhi.

The themes of his book and the timeline of the publication reiterate this fact. The list of propaganda books/booklets authored and published by Pieter Friedrich is: (i) The Faces of Terror in India (2011); Demons Within: The Systematic Practice of Torture by Indian Police (2011); (iii) Gandhi: Racist or Revolutionary? (2017); (iv) Captivating the Simple-Hearted: A Struggle for Human Dignity in the Indian Subcontinent (2017); (v) Bharat Bandh and the Dalit Struggle Against Dehumanization (2018); (vi) Kite Fights: The Proxy Wars Behind the Kabul Gurdwara Massacre (2020); (vii) Saffron Fascists: India's Hindu Nationalist Rulers (2020).

A quick look at the themes and the timeline reveals that he has been working on attacking the India state regardless of the regime in power and suddenly diverted to attacking Hindutva and RSS as it conveniently suited the Khalistani narrative.

It is also important to note that similar to diversions and deviations from his area of ‘expertise’, Pieter has also been a master in changing and camouflaging identities, proving himself to be a crafty clown and a skilful imposter. The Disinfo Lab report has revealed that he has adopted the identities of Pieter Singh, Patrick Nevers, Peter Flanigan, Pieter Friedrich, and the list goes on. He has certainly tried to adopt a new identity for every new campaign. He abused Mahatma Gandhi by the name cover of Peter Flanigan and took up the Khalistani flag as Pieter Singh. Similarly, he began peddling anti-India narrative by authoring books as Patrick J Nevers.

Speaking to a media outlet on his relationship with Bhinder, Pieter argued to have “co-authored two books with Bhajan Singh, including one on how the origins of Sikhism are entwined with the anti-caste struggle”. A fact check by Zee News has revealed that he has actually written four books with Bhinder – all attacking the Indian state and none of them touching the issue of caste in India.

Pieter also tried to disguise his actual role in OFMI and never agreed to be the kingpin of the anti-India organisation. In one of his tweets about OFMI, he stated – “Highly recommend you follow @OFMIorg, a brilliant human rights collective for which I was once an advisory director.” A fact check by our team revealed that the claim was a bizarre lie and he has never been the Advisory Director of the organisation, rather it was registered in his name in 2007, and later taken over by Bhinder in 2013. His brother-in-law, Steven Macias, a Christian missionary, happens to be the CFO of OFMI.

Speaking to a media outlet and attempting to dissociate himself from his Khalistani connections, he argued, “had I ever seen Bhajan even hint at support for Khalistan, I would have run the other way.” The speeches delivered by him at Khalistani congregations, association with Pakistani embassy, and having worked with a number of Khalistani extremists reveals that he was always well aware of what he was doing and was supporting the Khalistani terror campaign in principle as well as in action.  He was also associated with another Khalistani outfit Sikh Information Centre (a Khalistani organization) and adopted a fake identity as Pieter Singh. In addition, he ran companies with Bhinder, knowing that he was a most wanted Khalistani terrorist, hatching terror conspiracy against India.

In fact, security officials have highlighted that Bhinder was a ‘Person of Interest’ (POI) for the US Drug Enforcement Administration for a long time and was also responsible for supplying arms and ammunition for attacking Indian cities. It seems quite hard to believe that an ‘expert’ on South Asian affairs failed to notice this fact despite working with Bhinder in a partnership. 

In another fundraising website (https://www.patreon.com/pieterfriedrich) Pieter is seeking donations for “awareness about RSS activities in India & abroad” and the description section reads – “I am a freelance journalist specializing in the analysis of affairs in South Asia, with a focus on the RSS and its Hindu nationalist agenda. I produce books, articles, video interviews, and more as well as give lectures and engage in activism with a focus on human rights and liberty in that region.” Transparency activists suggest that emotional and irrational public easily fall prey to such fake activists and end up donating the money which finally gets misused for personal expenses by those ‘activists’. They also suggested that this fundraising campaign and similar ones suggest that besides making profits from his ISI handlers, he has himself started a side business to make money in the name of exploiting anti-India sentiments.

The world has suddenly realised that Pieter has now suddenly evolved as a journalist. As his Twitter bio reads – “Experte für Südasien-Angelegenheiten (Expert in South Asia affairs). I believe in bold, factual, aggressive and adversarial journalism”.

Similarly, according to his website, “Pieter specializes in the analysis of historical and current affairs in South Asia. He engages with issues such as human rights, supremacist political ideologies, ethnonationalism, the politicization of religion, authoritarian government structures and policies, state-sponsored atrocities, and the need to unify around doctrines of liberty.”

During our research, we were unable to find out even a single empirical work by Pieter pertaining to either of the areas. What we found indicated that in totality, Pieter has been representing the Khalistanis everywhere in the US by making ambiguous and baseless allegations against India. We also analysed his speeches delivered during the OFMI events and strikingly observed that though he peddled several allegations against the Indian government, he not at once came up with a tangible data or argument to substantiate his arguments. But what he certainly succeeded in doing was more detrimental to India’s global reputation as excerpts from his addresses were used by several ISI sponsored columnists and media outlets to peddle the propaganda quoting an ‘Expert on South Asian Affairs’.

His website further reads, “Pieter has lectured at Columbia University, Stanford University, UC Berkeley, UC Los Angeles, Carleton University, and St. Stephens College. A staunch advocate for religious liberty and interfaith cooperation, he has spoken at mosques, gurdwaras, churches, and viharas. He has travelled and lived in Europe and Asia.”

“Let me remind you, Pieter has ‘lectured at’ and ‘not studied’ at the top universities mentioned on his website. Any common Indian visiting his website would get impressed just by noticing the names of these prominent institutions and without noticing the difference between the two things, might get convinced by the very idea of Pieter’s association with these institutions”, added the expert.

Similarly, Pieter, being a former pastor himself, has hardly visited any religious site other than Church and later as a Khalistan sponsored expert in Gurdwaras. However, given his anti-Hindu bias cultivated by the ISI sponsored, he was never seen visiting a Hindu temple.

An experienced civil society activist we spoke to argued that the words used on his website regarding Pieter’s educational qualification are wisely crafted in an attempt to provide legitimacy to his anti-India activities as everyone would listen to the words of an ‘expert’ who works on issues like ‘human rights’, ‘supremacist political ideologies’, ‘ethnonationalism’, ‘state-sponsored atrocities’, etc.

These few, but significant fact checks underline the magnitude and intensity of the propaganda being peddled by the Khalistani-Pakistani combine. Also, the expose on Pieter’s activities has uncovered only one single thread of propaganda war that Pakistan has waged on India. There could be several such soldiers based across the world and possibly, even in India who have been aiding to Pakistan’s war. India certainly needs to come up with a comprehensive strategy to counter the propaganda strategy as a mass scale and investigative agencies should try to investigate and hold the trial against every individual helping Pakistan in its disinformation warfare against India.