Gonzalo Lira is a Chilean-American journalist who was recently arrested in Ukraine over a series of YouTube videos he’d published critical of the Ukraine gov...

AI summary:

A Chilean journalist, Gonzalo Lira, who had been living in Ukraine, was arrested by the Security Service of Ukraine on suspicion of pro-Russian sympathies and criticizing the government. He had been detained before in April, released, and then rearrested for voicing views critical of the West and Ukraine’s government. He faced torture while imprisoned, then managed to post bail but decided to flee to Hungary for political asylum. He believed the Ukrainian government was setting him up to be arrested again. He went missing after attempting to cross the Ukrainian-Hungarian border. The situation highlighted concerns about free speech and the treatment of dissenters in Ukraine.

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    Discussion of conspiracy theories
    In May 2017, Dore discussed conspiracy theories on the murder of Seth Rich on his show.[40][41] According to Salon, Dore continued to insist that there were “a lot of red flags” and there was “probably something more to this story” after the source of much of the conspiracy theory was discredited.[42] In December 2020, an article in New York magazine said Dore’s discernment was questionable, due in part to his “promotion of conspiracy theories implicating the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in Seth Rich’s death”.[43]

    In 2017, Dore argued that the chemical weapons attack on the opposition-held town of Khan Sheikhun was likely to have been a “false flag”, orchestrated by groups opposed to Bashar al-Assad.[44] The investigative journalism site Bellingcat reported that Dore received $2,500 from the Association for Investment in Popular Action Committees in 2017. The Association is responsible for the Serena Shim Award and is described by Bellingcat as a pro-Assad lobby group.[44] According to Bellingcat, Dore featured Eva Bartlett in “another 2017 conspiracy-theory segment” about Syria.[44]

    In 2018, according to Stephen Shalom writing in New Politics, Dore cited an op-ed which quoted US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis out of context as saying that he did not have evidence that the nerve agent sarin was used in Syria.[45] Mattis, speaking in a press conference in February 2018, had been referring to recent reports when he said he did not have evidence of sarin use, adding that Assad’s government had “been caught using” sarin during the Obama administration and “used it again during our administration”.[45]