The sanctions imposed on me are part of Europe’s growing authoritarianism and militarism, cloaked in language of fighting disinformation and defending democracy.
In May 2025, the European Union sanctioned me – a German journalist – for my reporting. My media platform, red., no longer exists. I have never been charged with a crime, let alone tried or convicted. Yet the EU froze my bank accounts and banned me from travelling under the sanctions regime they rolled out following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. I have consistently opposed that war, so how does the EU claim I am linked to Russia? Through my reporting on pro-Palestinian protests in Berlin.
These sanctions are not just an attempt to silence me (they won’t succeed) – they are a form of extrajudicial punishment that marks a dangerous new frontier. The EU’s counter-disinformation policy, originally aimed at Russia, is being transformed into a political weapon against internal dissent.
Sign the international petition demanding that the sanctions imposed on me be lifted. The first signatories include Jeremy Corbyn, Yanis Varoufakis, Roger Waters, Clare Daly, Sevim Dağdelen and others.
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My case is not an exception – it’s a warning. It comes at a moment when Europe not only continues its active support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza, but is sharply shifting to the authoritarian right, and is arming itself to the teeth at an alarming rate. All the while it escalates its fearmongering about fictitious threats from Russia, China, Iran and as ever: migrants and Muslims.
How the EU uses anti-Russian hysteria to smear Palestine solidarity journalism
The official rationale for sanctioning me hinges on red.’s alleged links to Russian influence. The EU sanctions listing cited just two pieces of “evidence”: that some red. staff had previously worked for Russian-funded media, and that we covered “politically controversial subjects” – specifically: Palestine. That’s it.
The listing accuses me, through my work with red., of “facilitating violent demonstrations”, amplifying “radical Islamic terrorist narratives” and claims our staff “coordinated with occupiers”. Not a single piece of evidence is cited, apart from the fact that we published footage of a pro-Palestine student occupation in Berlin. In other words, we did journalism. But in the EU’s framing, that journalism created “discord” in a member state.
Because the EU also paints Russia’s agenda as destabilising, it takes just one cynical leap to equate our Palestine coverage with supporting Russian destabilisation of Europe. One plus one equals five.
This absurd and dangerous narrative originated in the German media landscape, which has become globally exceptional in its unconditional support for Israel as it commits atrocity after atrocity in Palestine. Ironically, the same media outlets who fuelled the smear campaign against red. have accused us of practices they themselves adopt.
The German outlet taz, which has published genocide denying features and justifications for the systematic murder of Palestinian journalists, was at the forefront of accusing us of Russian collusion based on the CVs of some of our staff. taz itself has received German state funding through a foundation headed by a former employee of RT’s subsidiary Ruptly, a fact taz conceals on its website. The hypocrisy is staggering – but the logic is clear: accusations of “disinformation” flow one way.
How a German media smear campaign became the EU’s crackdown blueprint
Just days after our coverage of the pro-Palestine student occupation of Humboldt University in late May 2024, German newspaper, Tagesspiegel, alleged—without evidence – that we were coordinating protests in service of Russia’s goal to destabilize Europe.
By September, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken cited Tagesspiegel as proof that red. was a covert influence operation. A month later, the EU expanded its anti-Russia sanctions regime to classify “hybrid threats” – now including disinformation – as punishable offenses.
Within days, taz became the first outlet to equate us with a military threat to Germany – just as this framing began to serve as a pretext for sanctions. Its headline, describing red. as part of Moscow’s “hybrid war” in Berlin, once again cited our pro-Palestine protest coverage as the main basis for this dangerous accusation. The piece effectively put a target on our backs – one that would soon be taken up by the EU’s opaque security apparatus.
In March 2025, red. was listed in the European External Action Service’s annual Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) report. Two months later, I was sanctioned.
The process is disturbingly circular: media outlets publish unverified claims; officials then cite those reports to justify crackdowns; and the same outlets report those crackdowns as confirmation – framing their “suspects” in language so extreme that invites extrajudicial repression. No charges. No court. No evidence.
Germany – outsourcing repression to the EU
My case also reveals how the fundamentally undemocratic structures of the EU are now being used by member states like Germany to bypass their own legal constraints. German authorities had surveilled red. for months but never questioned or charged me. Why? Because there is simply no evidence for them to win in court and prosecuting a journalist would also have provoked public backlash – at a time when international criticism of Israel’s genocide is intensifying.
At the same time, Germany is facing increased scrutiny for its unconditional support of Israel and its exceptional repression of Palestine solidarity. As Amnesty International put it, this level of repression “feels unbelievable in a Europe that boasts about its leadership in human rights.”
And how has Germany responded to criticism from an organisation whose reports on countries like Iran it readily cites to lecture others? Not with more accountability – but with even less. It has begun outsourcing its repression to Brussels.
The EU’s sanctions regime allows politicians – not judges – to impose life-altering penalties with zero oversight. There is no trial, no burden of proof. I now live under conditions more severe than some convicted criminals: banned from travel, excluded from the banking system, and unable to provide for my family.
A mafia boss can have their account frozen and simply open a new one elsewhere. I cannot.
This strategy won’t stop with me. As Germany’s ruling class intensifies its assault on the living and working conditions of ordinary people, there will be more protests, more resistance, more journalists and organizers to target.
Since October 7, 2023, I have argued that Germany’s unprecedented crackdown on Palestine solidarity is not just an attack on Palestinians or Muslims – it is an attack on German society as a whole. By targeting the most vulnerable voices – migrants, Muslims, and critical journalists – the state is sending a message to everyone: if you dissent, you will be next.
Germany is rapidly moving to become a leading military power within NATO. Its staggering rearmament is being financed by squeezing workers, slashing public services, and eroding social protections. The state wants the working class to know what’s in store if it dares to think about rising to defend itself. And if the EU can help them shut down dissent in advance, all the better.
How the EU built a censorship regime
The EU has spent the past decade building the legal scaffolding for this crackdown – without a whisper of dissent from Europe’s liberal media or civil society. Warmongers have always used a bogeyman to co-opt its liberal bourgeoisie for its wars on domestic and foreign adversaries, from Communists, to Saddam Hussein, to migrants, to Muammar Gaddafi. Today nothing shakes liberals’ loyalty to their democratic principles faster than one word: Russia.
Craftily situating its disinformation strategy as part of its fight against a fictitious Russian threat, the EU’s foreign policy arm, the EEAS, has gradually reframed dissident journalism as a danger to the bloc’s security. Militarized terms like “hybrid threats” and “foreign interference” are now being stretched to cover domestic dissidents – branded as “proxies” of foreign adversaries based on vaguely defined criteria with no grounding in law.
What has emerged is a full-fledged “war on disinformation” – a rhetorical cousin to the West’s wars on communism, crime, drugs, and terror. Each of those “wars,” even by the admission of their erstwhile champions, produced far more repression and rights violations than they did public safety. This one is no different.
This “war on disinformation” hasn’t remained rhetorical, it has been codified into EU policy, but now in an even more broad form so that not just false information or illegal speech are targeted, but even perceived tone and intent. Since 2022, disinformation has gradually been supplanted by Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) which the EU defines as:
“A mostly non‐illegal pattern of behavior that threatens or has the potential to negatively impact values, procedures, and political processes… manipulative in character, conducted in an intentional and coordinated manner. Actors can be state or non‐state, including proxies.”
That same year, the Digital Services Act (DSA) granted the Commission sweeping powers to declare information emergencies and mandate social media platforms to remove content. Digital rights groups are sounding the alarm that the EU is using the DSA for “politically driven interventions” and as a “global censorship tool”.
All of this in the name of “defending democracy” in Europe, which according to one EU report, resolution, decision and regulation after another, is threatened by narratives which “[undermine] the European project”, and question the “democratic legitimacy of the representatives of Member States”. According to the bloc’s executives, the EU is so democratic, that the democratic right of its citizens to question how democratic it truly is, must be viewed with suspicion.
Mockery aside, we leftists know well to be suspicious when the powers that be in the West begin to talk about “defending democracy” in the Global South. We have seen the horrors such language has enabled from Latin America to the Middle East. We need to be equally suspicious of it at home, especially at a time when Europe and its leading member states like Germany, are beating the war drums louder than ever before.
The real target isn’t Russia. It’s us.
The EU says its sanctions are designed to “bring about a change in the policy or conduct of those targeted, with a view to promoting the objectives of the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy.” In plain language, the sanctions are there to coerce their adversaries and critics into agreeing with them.
The EU also claims its sanctions “are not punitive”. This is a lie – just like U.S. sanctions on Cuba, Iran or those which killed half a million children in Iraq, these measures don’t punish governments – they punish ordinary people.
This is not about stopping war crimes. It is about silencing those who expose them. I oppose Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But I also oppose the EU’s militarism, its complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and its attacks on the democratic ideals it claims to defend. For that, I have been sanctioned.
The EU has created a model of repression that is rapidly expanding. Today it targets Palestine solidarity journalism. Tomorrow it could be reporters covering mass strikes, climate uprisings, or anti-austerity protests.
Unless we resist it now, we risk waking up in a Europe where dissent is not just marginalized, but subject to the kind of repression we have until now only associated with the most ruthless dictatorships.
This article was first published by Diem25 / 16.06.2025
Signed!
Only insane psychopaths (and more than likely Epstein boys, and girls) say, "We have proof that you are evil." Then let it sit a while, and come back and say, "See, I told we have proof. There it is. In our records, right there, 'you are evil.'"
Hüseyin, es tut mir von Herzen weh dass und deine Familie so unter diesem Regime leiden müsst.
Ich habe Deutschland vor langer Zeit verlassen und bin freiwillig zurück in meine Heimat. Ich konnte es einfach nicht aushalten, die Atmosphäre, das Anderssein,mich ständig erklären zu müssen.
Ich bin halb Lebanesin,halb aus Subsaharan Westafrika. Muslima.
Ich konnte mir nicht vorstellen in Deutschland zu heiraten und dort Kinder großzuziehen.
Fast 20 Jahre sind vergangen und ich habe meine Entscheidung nicht bereit.
Afrika ist meine Heimat, auch die Levant aber dort bin ich nicht aufgewachsen.
Mein Sohn ist jetzt ein stolzer schwarzer junger Muslim, nicht in eine Schublade gesteckt, hängt nicht auf der Straße Rum weil er ein Gefühl von Heimat und Familie hat und nicht durch seine Hautfarbe oder Religion auffällt.
Mir würde es in Deutschland jetzt so wie Dir ergehen, leider.
Ich kann und werde nicht Schweigen.
Ich wünsche Dir und den Deinen viel Kraft und alles erdenklich Gute 🤲🏽✊🏽🫂