The mysterious letter that recently arrived at Fifa’s offices in Zurich has caused great astonishment since it became public knowledge.

In the letter, an organization that calls itself writes “Denmark uncensored”which refers to itself as a “human rights organization”, that Fifa must allow the referees in the upcoming football World Cup in Qatar to wear armbands with the inscription “end racism in Denmark”.

To attack Denmark

Denmark’s racist policy must stop, and Fifa president Gianni Infantino must use the World Cup to intervene and make the world aware of problems in the Nordic country, is the message of the letter.

At the same time, Denmark Uncensored uses the letter to praise those who are organizing the upcoming WC in Qatar:

“First of all, we want to pay tribute to their extraordinary efforts to organize the World Cup in Qatar», it says in the open letter to Gianni Infantino.

Read the whole letter to her:

The letter has received a lot of attention in Denmark. Here you see some of the media reports of the last few days:

But who really is Denmark Uncensored?

NRK has not succeeded in getting in touch with anyone from the general human rights organization in recent days.

The letter is also not signed by a spokesperson. The organization had an English language Homepagebut it has now been shut down.

Unknown to Amnesty

Frank Conde Tangberg, political advisor at Amnesty International, tells NRK that they are aware of the letter, but have not heard Denmark Uncensored before.

NRK has been in contact with the Danish Football Association (DBU) and offered them a statement about the letter and what they think about the sender and motive.

– DBU does not want to comment on information that has not been confirmed, writes communications manager Jakob Høyer in an e-mail to NRK.

So what do we know about who is behind it?

The website was first registered on 21 January 2022 with the company NameCheap, which hides who is actually behind the website. The company has offices in Iceland, but the website can be registered from anywhere in the world. In recent years it has become common to provide information about who has created a website.

The website has now been closed, but NRK has managed to access it retrieve it via an archive service.

Almost all of the news articles are highly critical of Denmark.

Titles like «Denmark threatens to deport children born via surrogacy», «Denmark is ruining the lives of Syrian refugees” and “The number of hate crimes in Denmark is skyrocketing» are examples of titles from the homepage.

– Almost certainly actors in Qatar

At the same time, NRKbeta has investigated the technical aspects of the website and has come to the conclusion that it is a simple website that takes a short time to create.

It says nothing about who is behind the page, and it is “admin” who is on the author byline on all matters. On the front page, there is an “about us” section, where it says the following:

«True Denmark is a people-based campaign consisting of primary Danish victims of human rights violations. Our campaign aims to shed light on the grim Danish human rights violations, such as abuse of refugee rights, ghettos, slavery, abuse of workers in addition to discrimination based on ethnicity and skin color.

Worth noting is that the letter comes not long after it became known that Denmark will wear “protest kits” in the Qatar World Cup where logos and other details have been completely toned down.

The move was made to mark distance from the host country.

Nicholas McGeehan is a Middle East expert and former researcher for the human rights organization Human Rights Watch.

He says straight out that he thinks it is people in the WC country themselves who are behind the letter as a kind of revenge against the Danes.

– It was almost certainly initiated by actors in Qatar and appears to be sufficiently organized to be part of an officially sanctioned operation. The motivation seems to be to attack the Danish government’s policy in response to the attitude towards the Danish national team’s kit sponsor, McGeehan believes.

Qatar: – Have no knowledge

However, Qatari authorities favor any connection to the case.

– The Qatari government has no knowledge of the origins of this organization or activities, and we must be aware of the organization through the recent media reports, writes the Qatari government’s press department in an email to NRK.

However, McGeehan gets full support from Denmark’s Helle Malmvig. She is a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies and an expert on international politics and security in the Middle East.

She states above NRK that there are many indications that Denmark Uncensored simply does not exist.

Means the sender reveals himself

The senior researcher rather believes that the letter and the defunct website are being used as part of an information war.

– In the letter they have a logo, but no address. They also have no spokesman or chairman who has signed it, and their website has now been closed. In the letter, there is not only criticism of Denmark, but also of a way in which the Qatar World Cup is organised. It looks like a classic disinformation strategy, she says to NRK.

Malmvig points out that it is common to mix in a little truth when conducting a disinformation strategy. And the criticism against Denmark’s treatment of special refugees is not new. New York Times put a year spotlight on this some time ago.

Malmvig points out that no one in Denmark knows about Danmark Uncensored, and asks himself the following question: If they actually exist, why don’t they get their message and criticism out?

In an early phase, the letter was discussed in the Middle East by major media such as Doha News and the Middle East Monitor, and this means that the senior researcher believes that the actual sender of the letter is revealing himself.

– The fact that this criticism was also reproduced by Doha News, and not given to Danish media, I think points in a certain direction. Doha News operates in Qatar and has had several other stories critical of Denmark. In Qatar, where there is no freedom of the press, you cannot operate like this without it being in accordance with the ruling power’s common thread, she points out.

– It’s something about the timing

NRK has no basis to establish that it is actors in Qatar who are behind the letter and the website.

But there are several things that make the senior researcher point in a certain direction.

– It’s something about the timing, it comes at a certain point, since in recent weeks there has been talk of Denmark’s Minister of Culture Ane Halsboe-Jørgensen traveling to Qatar as an official representative and carrying out a visible and sensational “happening” as a criticism of the World Cup the country, and then there is this with the football kits. I think the timing points towards Qatar. But you can rarely prove who is behind disinformation, Malmvig points out.

Middle East expert McGeehan is also not surprised that Fifa receives such a letter now.

– We have seen this type of thing before in the Gulf, where disinformation, smear campaigns and artificial grassroots movements have been used to attack critics of the government’s human rights violations, and this looks like it fits into that pattern, he says.

Helle Malmvig, who thus has long experience as a Middle Eastern researcher, believes that it has become more widespread in recent years in the Gulf countries to respond to criticism in such a way.

– How sure are you that Qatar is behind it?

– I hate to say a percentage, but it seems very likely that Qatar is behind it. The operators can do it with the help of middlemen they pay to implement it, it can be, for example, Egyptians who work in Qatar who are paid to make such a website. But pictures are very difficult to prove. I think we should be very lucky if we ever find out for sure who is behind it, she says.

– If it is not Qatar that is behind the attack on Denmark in that letter, who do you think it could be?

– I have thought a lot about it myself. If I have to speculate, it must be some kind of stunt by a left-wing radical group that wants to bring attention to racism in Denmark. But at the same time, I think it is very difficult to see a left-wing group that wants to praise the World Cup in Qatar, as they do in the letter, and generally do something that can be read as support for Qatar, since this particular wing has been the most active in criticizing the conditions for migrant workers … But it is a possibility, she says.

Fifa has not responded to our inquiry about the matter.

The WC will be organized in Qatar from 20 November and will conclude with the final on 18 December.