A conversation between a Dutch Professor, Cees Hamelin, a former UN advisor to Kofi Annan and Journalist Karel Beckman from the Cafe Weltschmerz, a very thoughtful Dutch news website. The subject matter is based on the fact that YouTube (aka Google aka Alphabet) saw fit to ban two Cafe Weltschmerz video programs. Here they discuss the reasons and ramifications of this censorship, from both a scientific as well as a democratic perspective.
The video of this conversation (In Netherlands) is available here. There are a couple of small sections I could not effectively translate but they are not at all relevant to the subject material.
All Italicised text is out TDG input
Tony Broomfield.
- KAREL BECKMAN
Welcome viewers and listeners my name is Karel Beckman, and I’m here with Cees Hamelin.
The reason for this conversation is that YouTube has again removed two broadcasts from (Our website) Café Weltschmerz,
two columns by our esteemed columnist Ad Nuis due to “medical disinformation”.
At least this time YouTube has been kind enough to include the “Guidelines on Medical Disinformation.”
Before we had this you never knew for sure which guideline you had violated or which part of that guideline.
Now in this conversation we want to look at what is the policy that YouTube conducts and what are the implications of it,
and that’s what I’m going to do with Cees Hamelin – maybe you can introduce yourself Cees.
- CEES HAMELIN
Yes, for our conversation perhaps the most important thing to say is that despite being well past retirement age, I am still a Professor at the Free University in the faculty of Life Sciences, where I am the Professor of Human Rights and Public Health.
Also, in my long life, I have done a lot of work for the United Nations, (UN) with a great deal of admiration and a lot of pleasure…and also with a lot of criticism. I was an advisor to the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan and I very much enjoyed working together with him. We spent a lot of time together
I have known the UN very well since the early 1970s and not only do I feel it is important to have the United Nations, but I think it is just as important that there should also be a place to criticise it when necessary.
KAREL BECKMAN
Yes(Agreed)
- CEES HAMELIN …and one of the organizations that belong (to the UN) network is now of course very important in the current Covid discussion and that is the World Health Organisation (WHO)
KAREL BECKMAN
… I hope we might talk about the WHO in a moment but maybe we can first take a good look at that policy from YouTube?
- CEES HAMELIN – yes of course
- KAREL BECKMAN
…as I read it, basically what they say is, if you claim something that is contrary to what the WHO
or your national health authority claims, then we will remove it (that content) from the internet.
- CEES HAMELIN
That, for a lot of strange reasons, takes us to a time when we need to ask ourselves if the “WHO or National Health authorities don’t ever spread misleading information themselves”.
Have a look at all the doctors who have misdiagnosed over the years or take a look at the false information provided by major Pharma manufacturers such as Pfizer,….. who have often been in court with settlements of millions and millions of dollars for spreading misleading information. Why can Pfizer do that but someone who speaks out in a column for Weltschmerz cannot?
Moreover, there is a second argument that asks the question what exactly is misleading information? who decides that?
- KAREL BECKMAN
Yes we must assume that the WHO is the truth and we must follow that, much more than we have to follow Pfizer,
but can we look at the WHO …with whom you have actual experience working with this organization?
- CEES HAMELIN
Yes I’ve been working in Geneva for 70 years and had a lot of friends in the WHO ..and for a very trivial reason … they had the best canteen where you can have an excellent lunch, it was always enjoyable.
- KAREL BECKMAN
(Laughing)
- CEES HAMELIN
But over the years I heard complaints from many people who worked as doctors and a wide range of medical experts about the horrific incompetence of the WHO. The thinking is that within the company of organisations affiliated with the UN, the WHO is the “troublesome child”.
Incompetent, corrupt, spending way too much of the wrong kind of money, and with a First-Class cronyism that haunts the organization. Moreover, if you want to talk about misleading information, several studies have been done recently, with one in 2015… one major study, that showed the WHO provided misleading information about medicines and vaccines as a result of which doctors gave the wrong prescriptions to patients causing people to die.
So is the WHO, one of the largest Clubs in the world, really fit to say “we have a monopoly on wisdom, you must follow us and it will be okay”?
- KAREL BECKMAN
How is that and has it anything to do with the role of the pharmaceutical industry within the WHO?
- CEES HAMELIN
It has to do with two things, (Firstly) it has to do with a general nature of the United Nations …the UN as such is a large bureaucratic clumsy organization which is mainly concerned for the interests of The State. It is a state organization, a club of states, in which most states in that world are either corrupt or rogue states. That is the club you have to deal with.
(Secondly) …. what there is now at the WHO is an enormous pressure from the pharmaceutical industry and particularly right now also from GAVI that is that world alliance for vaccines that is part of the Bill Gates organization.
- KAREL BECKMAN
GAVI,? can you perhaps explain what is …. G A V I?
- CEES HAMELIN
Yes G.A.V.I., the (Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisations) world alliance of vaccinations that came about at the beginning of this century is an organization that is committed to using vaccines to eliminate a lot of diseases from the world. They have more and more say now because the WHO have come under pressure from Bill Gates as its biggest funder. The amazing thing about that organization (GAVI) is that it is a non-governmental organization and it is the only non-governmental organization I know of that has managed to get Diplomatic Immunity.
In Switzerland, (the Swiss are also not averse to corruption, an experience I gained while working for a long time in Switzerland), but that club has been able to get the Swiss authorities to the point where they have absolute immunity, which means that in Switzerland Bill Gates is absolutely untouchable.
No police officer is allowed into his office, no police officer is allowed to confiscate his computers. (He has) even greater immunity than most diplomats in Geneva.
I think that is the kind of information that should already be making people somewhat dubious or suspicious, in any case, it is worth the effort to be talking about it openly.
- KAREL BECKMAN
There too you see both the Dutch government and the Media accepting the WHO as the authority?
- CEES HAMELIN
Yes and not only the WHO, we also have GAVI the international vaccines alliance as a very reliable partner with the Dutch government, who have promised to donate €325 million in the coming years in fact to Bill Gates.
Our Prime Minister was extremely proud of the fact we managed to do that. But we must think of the €325 million going to an organization that is often designated by experts as a semi-criminal organization with a strange diplomatic immunity yet you don’t see a critical debate about that?
Not even in politics, in parliamentary questions, at least we should be asking why we spend so much money with such an organization
- KAREL BECKMAN
How do you explain that then?……
There are often left wing people who we see as being against billionaires like Bill Gates but there is no opposotion………
- CEES HAMELIN
I think it is almost a kind of Stockholm syndrome,
It is like someone who is kidnapped who gradually starts to love their kidnapper….and here and there I feel a bit like we have been kidnapped by Bill Gates and now we must slowly learn to love him, as though that is the best way to go.. the best way to deal with it.
It is very surprising that even in Dutch politics, apart from a couple of people, there is hardly any critical opposition questioning, for example,
What is the WHO?
How reliable is that organization?
What does such an international alliance do?
What is the role of bill gates?
Why is there no discussion about the curious situation in which Bill Gates has tried to get a seat on the executive board of the WHO when only member states are admitted to that board.
So in fact Bill Gates, by this attempt has indicated that he “feels himself to be a Member State of the United Nations”. That actually got to the voting stage, and he lost, but the mere fact that the WHO as an organization took something like that seriously?
I think it causes a lot of doubt about the credibility of such an organization
- KAREL BECKMAN
I don’t think you have much faith in the WHO director either.
- CEES HAMELIN
No, he might well have been elected but there was also a British candidate in opposition to him who was considerably more reliable to my thinking, but that man who is now Director General?(Dr Tedros) That is someone who will probably stand trial, after this current posting, before the International Criminal Court in The Hague for crimes against humanity
- KAREL BECKMAN
Why?
- CEES HAMELIN
For incredible cruelty when he was the Ethiopian minister of foreign affairs. It is unbelievable that he was both elected (as Director General of the WHO) and that he got a majority of votes.
Equally unbelievable is that the Dutch government blindly follow this organization whose head not only functioned as a Dictator in Ethiopia but also,(as a Dictator) within the (WHO) organization. I often hear from people who are still there that it is now a dictatorial regime and any contradiction is not welcome
- KAREL BECKMAN
The Netherlands has signed up for the international law WHO guideline?
- CEES HAMELIN …
…Yes, those are the international health regulations that are still standing and have been revised a few times. Up to the last revision, the Netherlands again signed, with the majority of member states, and that in fact means that everything the WHO proposes is binding on all member states.
So you can sign up there as a member state and once you have signed you must always go along with the WHO.
What I find really interesting was during that last revision, I think was in 2005 or 2006, there were only two Member States who raised any serious objections (to the revisions) and they both stated that “We find it unnecessary to follow the guidelines of the WHO”. This was the unlikely duo of the United States of America and Iran. They have both clearly stated “We do not go along with that” (following WHO Guidelines).
- KAREL BECKMAN
…well they are Two big friends now…
- CEES HAMELIN
….yes they want to retain sovereignty. I also think it is very right they can do this, you can think what you like about such an organisation, but for the US and Iran, they reserve the right to think differently about this.
- KAREL BECKMAN
…okay, now not only does our government follow those guidelines but apparently they are not allowed to discuss it after that?
- CEES HAMELIN
Yes that fits very well within the WHO policy framework. Many of the people who work there complain that it is an organisation that is very undemocratically controlled, there is no transparency. We would actually like some transparency in the rest of our society too.
I also think it’s a big objection….. you can always object to everything that happens at YouTube but an even bigger objection is that an open and transparent democratic discussion is impossible on very important issues.
Who should we believe?
Who are those experts we must blindly follow?
Why can’t we even question that?
…and why are there certain claims that you can no longer make according to YouTube? These are often claims that are scientifically supported by the international experts.
- KAREL BECKMAN
Yes, but that’s why they pretend that there is some kind of consensus, while the science is always changing and moving on.
CEES HAMELIN
Yes, Concensus lives where there is a lack of agreement. If everybody always agreed about everything, and there was complete concensus then we would not have come any further than Aristotle
The main principle of science is that we always disagree with each other and …and have doubts, because doubt is the essence of scientific business
(it is.. ) Because of doubt we make progress, so if people make claims that you think have merit or lack merit then you can rightly ask them to show the evidence (substantiation) for this(Supporting the claim).
Of course we have often lacked scientific substantiation in the Netherlands from our own RIVM. (Dutch Institute for Public Health and Environment)
There is no scientific justification for the masks
No scientific justification for the one and a half meter distancing rule
The WHO says that one meter is enough, France says 2 meters, so there we disagree, and that has to do with the fact that there is no solid scientific basis.
- KAREL BECKMAN
Yes, I do like to read some of those guidelines to him thinks that not everyone is aware of that ….they go a long way, for example,
you can’t say that a Covid vaccine is deadly, so if there is an association with vaccinations and deaths as a result,
like the many messages we have now, you cannot say that on YouTube, and you cannot say, for example,
that you won’t get coronavirus if you made Asian food, or that you can prevent the spread of the virus by setting off Fireworks
…you cannot say that on YouTube either.
- CEES HAMELIN
I don’t know who said that but it looks like the one who says you eat too much Chinese food.
- KAREL BECKMAN
But, it goes into enormous detail about social distancing, we just mentioned, so “you are not allowed to say that social distancing has no effect”
- CEES HAMELIN
You are not allowed to say things that experts in the rest of the world are saying and we must only focus on the Dutch experts. There is now a very large group (Outside the Netherlands) that we don’t hear much about it in the Netherlands
One important virologist is Doctor Pablo Kohlschmidt,(Unable to locate this name for the moment awaiting clarification) one of the great virologists in the world of the Pasteur Institute who completely disagrees with the masks, or John Ioannidis in the United States who really disagrees with all kinds of data on which distancing policy is based. Should these claims be removed from YouTube?
Reading some of these YouTube guidelines is interesting, …..Here is a strange one….“Content should not be anything where their viewers are encouraged to use home remedies, pray, or perform rituals in place of seeking medical help from the doctor or hospital”.
I can still imagine home remedies being an issue, but there are groups, with large numbers of people in the world who belong to the indigenous peoples, and who follow what is right for them, and in such cases they may seek refuge in prayer and rituals. These people are brushed aside with one stroke of a pen, I think that is rather unkind, not to say racist, but it is also very dubious to say you should always seek the advice of the GP and go to a hospital under all circumstances
( I cannot follow this single short passage, it refers to a name and a book title that I cannot pinpoint – the search continues) ..…this is called a fancy name for what relates to diseases that are caused by doctors.
One of the biggest “causes of death” in this world are the actions of doctors upon hospitalised patients. So you must not always say you should always “seek medical help from the doctor or hospital before doing anything else” and I can well imagine that there are people who are a bit dubious about that too.
- KAREL BECKMAN
Sometimes then maybe praying may be wiser?
- CEES HAMELIN ….and that may very well be good for some people, who are we to judge?
- KAREL BECKMAN
I would like to explain the implications of this at because YouTube is a private company, a kind of publisher and in de Volkskrant (newspaper) you cannot just write everything, they determine (what goes in the paper).
We see YouTube more as an open platform which in America I know is legally the case, they are not publishing but they are classed as a forum, an open platform.
Last summer there was a lawsuit from Ab Gietelink also on behalf of Veld Smets against YouTube when a video was also removed it was about such a home remedy, apparently HCQ and there in Amsterdam the Preliminary relief judge”” in summary trial stated, “the fact that something violates the WHO guidelines or the guidelines of the national health authority is not sufficient reason to remove it from YouTube because it restricts peoples freedom of expression too much”
In fact we could probably challenge this again with that result in hand?
- CEES HAMELIN
An excellent decision from the judge in which he or she was of course completely right, so I think it is worth continuing that legal battle for a while, it will probably get stuck again because you will then have to appeal again if it is rejected. You will have to take it to the next level but I find it worth it to keep on trying.
I think if you see YouTube as a sort of network system, an information channel, or a conduit that is essential, (for society to have those kind of platforms) then it is a bit different to a daily Volkskrant newspaper, and then it is only right that they must give it a wider margin of freedom of expression.
Freedom of expression is not just a constitutional fact, but it is a core issue in all the declarations of the United Nations for example.
So, then it would be fair to say that on the basis of a right to freedom of expression then go even further and find out how far YouTube want to go with the position of being the same as that of an editor of a newspaper saying “we would rather not publish that”
- KAREL BECKMAN
Shouldn’t Dutch politicians be doing something? In Poland I believe they said that YouTube can’t just remove things anymore, should we do that in the Netherlands too?
- CEES HAMELIN
Yes, only I think that there is some reluctance to do this in the light of that judge’s decision you spoke of. But yes of course you should be allowed to say things that are contrary to the guidelines of the WHO because that is what the discussion is about after all, it is the very subject of the discussion, not just an observation, and the discussion eventually ends up with the reliability of the guidelines and recommendations from the WHO and therefore also from the RIVM and therefore also from our Minister of Health. If we keep on pretending to be an open democratic society, then it is all about things like this, and putting them in order.
Look I find it wholly unacceptable that no one, as far as I know, has asked anything in parliament so far.
Nobody has asked for example, about the Medical Alert from the WHO, a kind of medical warning bulletin, where it states in very small print that the PCR test should absolutely not be used to detect infectious diseases, while at the same time the WHO continues to promote the PCR test to the Dutch government. Which is it? One or the other?
Either you advise against using that test because it is not suitable for infectious diseases or if we must have another story then it must be discussed and so does the bigger problem of what is happening now with regard to the broadcasts of Weltschmerz and the columns of Ad Nuis. And that discussion is now impossible.
- KAREL BECKMAN
As a last point, isn’t this also going to be very counterproductive? because there is a great deal, also from the government, of propaganda almost for the vaccines.
All information is removed and the government seem to think they are doing this to stop people thinking the wrong thing.
I am worried that this works in reverse, (with people thinking the worst instead)
- CEES HAMELIN Yes but in history it always seems to be the other way round. It is an attempt at a kind of totalitarian system in which you think you can completely control people, make them think what you believe they should think. It has often been repeated throughout history but it always fails. In the short term it succeeds, like the policies of people such as Stalin, Pol Pot or Hitler not only fairly successful in the short term but at a huge cost of millions of deaths. In the long term though it was always wrong, and I think this is the case again.
Moreover, I think that if I were a politician such as Mr Van Dissel in a top position at the RIVM (Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid en Milieu – Dutch Institute for Health and Environment) or like Mr De Jonge, (the Health minister) then I would think three times about the enormous responsibility that rests upon them.
They should not forget the possibility that that there will soon be all kinds of lawsuits happening. In Germany, lawyer Reiner Fuellmich has started a kind of second Nuremberg tribunal and it is getting more and more lawyers worldwide to join in. I think the people who now believe they can make us think what they want us to think will sooner or later get found out and held personally responsible.
- KAREL BECKMAN
Well that’s a nice thought to end with here, in any event a bit optimistic ……but I am still sometimes a bit gloomy.
I should probably say now that this video will probably not be allowed on YouTube, I really don’t know…
we have a temporary ban in place that will last for two weeks with No uploads allowed
I would like to advise our viewers and listeners to try something other than YouTube.
We are also appear on Library TV for example on Bitchute, on Soundcloud and of course on our own website Café Weltschmerz.
All the videos are there to see if you want to get alternative information other than just that which has been approved by the WHO.
- KAREL BECKMAN -Thanks Cees Hamelin
- CEES HAMELIN – My Pleasure.
Another great site by the Dangerous Globe
