Welcome to Disinfo Bulletin, your daily update from the EDMO network. Today's most relevant stories: 

🕌🇪🇸 The creation of the Catalan Islamic Emirate. With the Catalan elections scheduled for May 12, immigration is one of the main topics of political debate in the region, according to local fact-checking organizations. As reported previously in this newsletter, disinformation about the alleged willingness to Islamize the region is polluting social media and the public discourse. In this context, a political party, as part of its campaign, put up some road signs at the entrance of different cities, saying “Welcome to the Islamic Emirate of Catalonia” or “No to Islamization”. Photos of these posters then circulated on social media, with users claiming that the signs were put there by migrant communities in the region, in an attempt to create an Islamic Emirate and reclaim the sovereignty of these cities.

At the same time, other false claims are circulating about alleged initiatives in other countries to counter the alleged Islamization. For example, the false stories that Switzerland is considering banning Islam in the country or that people are fleeing London after the re-election of Sadiqu Khan as mayor of the city. 


👨🏼‍💼 The false narratives portraying politician as dangerous for their own countries. In recent days, posts on TikTok in Poland suggested that Prime Minister Donald Tusk claimed that “Polishness is abnormal”. This quote was taken out of context from a decades-old article and spread by disinformation actors to discredit the politician and “prove” a distasteful attitude toward his own country, framing him as an elite, establishment politician or a “puppet of the West”. 

In Spain, disinformation about PM Pedro Sanchez continues to circulate, for example suggesting that The Guardian called him a “toxic politician”.


💥 CEDMO reports a pervasive impact of disinformation in Central Europe.  According to the latest CEDMO Fact-checking brief (in Polish), which covers the first quarter of 2024, 45% of the population in the Czech Republic was exposed to disinformation narratives, while in Slovakia the number was even higher, around 58%. For the first time since August 2023, people in Slovakia reported encountering more false news than accurate information in March, the month in which the first round of the presidential election took place.

In Poland, the second edition of the report Disinformation Through the Eyes of Poles (in Polish) by Demagog Poland shows that up to 84% of Poles have encountered fake news, with false narratives ranging across all facets of society – health, climate, technology, politics, and more – and potentially serious implications on voting behavior and election outcomes.

If you have suggestions, comments or requests about this newsletter, you can write to edmo.tfeu2024@eui.eu

This tool gathers material from the inputs of the EDMO fact-checking network, as well as a recently launched public database from the EFCSN network (Elections 24 Check), and the various national EDMO hubs, including community initiatives and insights from individual fact-checking organizations.