In the context of unprecedented efforts by Germany and the whole of Europe to prepare for war, the EU adopted a 17th package of sanctions against Russia in May. Pro-Russian and pro-Palestinian media outlets, as well as German journalists, were also targeted, which constitutes an open attack on press freedom.
The sanctions imposed on May 20 are primarily aimed at the leaders of military facilities and the so-called Russian “shadow fleet.” As the European Council explains, this is intended to “deprive Russia of access to key military technologies and reduce its energy revenues, which finance its aggressive war against Ukraine.”
However, the EU has also imposed censorship on media platforms. These media outlets and several German journalists are facing account blocks and travel bans in Europe simply for allegedly “false reporting” on the war in Ukraine or the genocide in Gaza. As a result of the sanctions, no one is allowed to provide them with any economic resources.
The EU sanctions list includes the pro-Palestinian news platform Red Media and its founder, Hüseyin Doğru, who reports from Berlin, as well as the Turkish media company AFA Medya, founded by Doğru.
Red Media reported that it was forced to cease operations even before the sanctions were officially announced. This was explained by a coordinated press campaign and pressure from the state, which also threatened the personal safety of employees. The EU accuses Red Media of “systematically spreading false information on politically controversial topics and deliberately supporting narratives that are considered destabilising for the EU.”
Red Media covered pro-Palestinian protests in Germany, interviewed Greta Thunberg and reported live from Humboldt University, which was occupied by students when pro-Palestinian activists took over the premises. Doğru told the newspaper Junge Welt on Tuesday how he found out about the sanctions: “No one notified me at all.”
Doğru is the founder of the left-wing media project Red Media, which is currently in the process of being dissolved and has been on the sanctions list since May 20. It was not until May 22 that an official notification was sent to the company’s registered address in Turkey. It arrived about a week later. The Berlin-based media activist has noticed restrictions in his daily life: “Bank cards stopped working, and suddenly you’re standing there with no cash.”
His pregnant wife tried to buy medicine at a pharmacy, “and suddenly her card stopped working too,” Doğru said. “My wife is not on the sanctions list and has nothing to do with this.” The German Federal Bank, which is responsible for enforcing financial sanctions, said after an enquiry that the block was a mistake — as of Friday, the account had been unblocked, but the funds were not yet available.
Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis spoke out in defence of a German journalist on X:
“It seems that our rulers, here in the ‘liberal’ West, have homed in on a new way of turning a person into a non-person.
Here is a man, Hüseyin Doğru, a German journalist (of Turkish origins, but not a dual citizen) whom the EU authorities have found a novel, immensely cruel, way of punishing for his coverage of, and views on, Palestine.
The German authorities learned a lesson from my case. Not wishing to be answerable in court for any ban on pro-Palestinian voices (similar to the court case I am dragging them through currently), they found another way: A direct sanction by the EU utilising some hitherto unused directive, one introduced at the beginning of the Ukraine war, that allows Brussels to sanction any citizen of the EU it deems to be working for Russian interests. Clinging to the argument that Hüseyin’s website/podcast used to be shown also on Ruptly (among other platforms), they are using this directive aimed at an ‘anti-Russian asset’ to destroy a journalist who dared oppose the Palestinian genocide.
In practice, this means that Hüseyin’s bank account is frozen; that if you or I were to give him cash to buy groceries or make rent then we would be considered his accomplices and subject to similar sanctions; it also means that if he were a civil servant, he would be fired; if he were a student he would be expelled from his university; if he received a pension it would be suspended; if he received any social benefit it would be frozen. It also, astonishingly, means that he cannot leave Germany!
Last, but definitely not least, it means that Hüseyin cannot sue his government for turning him into a non-person but only challenge the European Commission in Brussels – where he is not even allowed to go!…”
