[News] EU sanctions German journalist in shocking first over Gaza reporting

[Anti-Imperialist News]

electronicintifada.net
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/eu-sanctions-german-journalist-shocking-first-over-gaza-reporting>
EU sanctions German journalist in shocking first over Gaza reporting

Ali Abunimah <https://electronicintifada.net/people/ali-abunimah> Rights
and Accountability
<https://electronicintifada.net/blog/rights-and-accountability> 19 February
2026
------------------------------

In January, a post I saw on Twitter/X shocked me.

“URGENT: As of now, I have ZERO access to any money,” Hüseyin Dogru wrote
<https://x.com/hussedogru/status/2009210323463467239>. “I can’t provide
food for my family, including two newborns, due to EU sanctions.”

Dogru is a journalist, a German citizen living in Berlin.

After reading his post, I sent him a private message offering to order
groceries and have them sent to his home.

The reply shocked me even more. “Unfortunately, I’m not allowed to accept
any financial or material support,” Dogru wrote.

Dogru is the first European Union citizen known to be living inside the EU
to face extrajudicial sanctions imposed by Brussels – robbing him of
fundamental civil and humanitarian rights.

He’s also the first person to be sanctioned specifically for his reporting
related to Palestine.

“I’m not allowed to exist anymore, I’m not allowed to provide my children
with the basic necessities,” he explained on The Electronic Intifada
Podcast this week.

“I can’t pay my rent, I can’t pay my lawyers and yes – I’m not even allowed
to accept any kind of food, water or medicine whatsoever from third
parties.”

Technically, that even includes his own wife.

You can watch his interview with this writer in the video above.

Dogru was born in Germany and raised there all his life. He was the founder
of *Red*, an independent publication that extensively covered protests in
Germany against Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

He is unlikely to be the last person to face this new form of
excommunication – with the German government now openly threatening
<https://x.com/PLottaz/status/2024013064803156267> journalists that they
could be next if they stray too far from the official line.
The sanctions block all of Dogru’s property and ban him from traveling.

In theory, they do allow him to withdraw $600 a month from his own account,
but in practice his bank has repeatedly
<https://x.com/hussedogru/status/2012083436450709810> blocked
<https://x.com/hussedogru/status/2021888869331833243> even this.

In any case, $600 does not go very far in an expensive city like Berlin.
Dogru and his family have had to cut back severely to try to survive.

Dogru could face harsh punishment for accepting assistance from anyone.

Draconian EU directives <https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2024/1226/oj/eng>
call for up to five years in prison for anyone who violates the sanctions
against Dogru and other individuals.
“Socio-economic death sentence”

How could any of this be happening?

In May last year, the European Union adopted its 17th package of sanctions
<https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=OJ:L_202500965>
supposedly targeting Russia.

But those sanctions and more that followed
<https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ:L_202502568>
were not aimed only at Russian entities and individuals.

Brussels also began targeting – apparently for the first time – EU and
other European citizens.

What is particularly shocking is that these individuals were sanctioned
simply for speech – journalism or views disagreeing with the foreign
policies of their governments, NATO and the European Union.

They include Xavier Moreau
<https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ:L_202502568> –
a former French military officer and Moscow-based founder of Stratpol
<https://stratpol.com/>, a website critical of NATO and the French
government – and German citizens Alina Lipp and Thomas Röper, sanctioned
for their reporting from Russia.

In December, the EU also sanctioned
<https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ:L_202502568>
Jacques Baud, a former Swiss army colonel and intelligence analyst,
well-known in independent media for analysis of NATO and Western strategy
in the context of the war in Ukraine.

Baud lives in Brussels, but because of the sanctions he cannot travel back
home to Switzerland – which is not a member of the EU.

According to journalist Patrick Baab
<https://youtu.be/PNbF9qYx0Mg?si=KJXtViRCcjQedPhU&t=238>, who recently
visited him in the Belgian capital, Baud survives off the few hundred
dollars he is allowed to withdraw from his bank account under the
sanctions, and “the neighbors are cooking for him.”

Baud, like Dogru, is fighting back
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0IX27Ti3Mw>.

The EU has also sanctioned
<https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/information-wars/swiss-nationals-face-eu-sanctions-over-disinformation-allegations/90880366>
Nathalie Yamb, a Swiss-Cameroonian anti-colonial scholar.

She has described <https://x.com/Nath_Yamb/status/2000970713629376659> the
devastating impact of the sanctions, even though she does not live in or
travel to Europe. Yamb says she is unable to pay for rent or medicine and
cannot return to Switzerland because the sanctions ban flying over EU
territory.

Yamb calls the sanctions a “socio-economic death sentence,” and she too is
fighting back in court.
Sanctioned for covering Palestine

As well as being the first EU citizen to be sanctioned while living on EU
territory, Dogru is unique in another precedent-setting manner.

Like the others, he was sanctioned under blanket accusations of supposedly
spreading what the EU considers
<https://commission.europa.eu/topics/countering-information-manipulation_en>
pro-Russian “disinformation.”

But he is the only person to be sanctioned so far specifically for
reporting related to the situation in Palestine as well, particularly
Israel’s crimes in the context of the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

URGENT: The @EUCouncil <https://twitter.com/EUCouncil?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>
rejected my lawyers' application to "reconsider" the sanctions imposed on
me.

The evidence is shocking and dangerous, which forces me now to publish the
entire evidence used to sanction me.

The EU forbids me from publishing their evidence dossier.🧵…
pic.twitter.com/2e3gpQGWM7 <https://t.co/2e3gpQGWM7>
— Hüseyin Dogru (@hussedogru) September 3, 2025
<https://twitter.com/hussedogru/status/1963135039274709321?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw>

Dogru’s publication *Red* was also subjected to EU sanctions
<https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=OJ:L_202500965>.

In order to justify targeting *Red*, the EU claims that the publication
“systematically spread false information on politically controversial
subjects with the intent of creating ethnic, political and religious
discord amongst its predominantly German target audience, including by
disseminating the narratives of radical Islamic terrorist groups such as
Hamas.”

It’s not difficult to imagine how such a vague and broad claim –
reminiscent of Israel’s accusations that any critic is a Hamas supporter –
could be used to muzzle any publication that debunks official narratives.

The sanctions on *Red* proved to be unnecessary: It was effectively forced
to close down <https://thered.stream/red-media-is-closing-this-is-why/>
before the measures even took effect.

This came after what the publication called a “coordinated campaign” of
bogus and even criminal accusations leveled by “an unholy alliance of
German media outlets, journalists, union representatives and NGOs, some of
which were even founded or directly financed by the German and Israeli
state.”
Ominous echo of Germany’s past

These personal sanctions are adopted by EU foreign ministers – without any
judicial process or opportunity for those targeted to defend themselves –
and are binding on all member states.

Apparently, in order to deprive Dogru of any legal rights he would enjoy as
an EU citizen, the EU sanctions decision identifies him only as a Turkish
citizen, even though he is, in fact, only a German citizen and not a
Turkish national.

Germany and the EU appear to be denying Dogru’s German citizenship purely
based on his ethnicity – convenient for them and a horrifying echo
<https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/llglrd/2019670401/2019670401.pdf>
of how a past German government treated its Jewish citizens years before it
decided to exterminate them.

The message to millions of Europeans with ancestry in former European
colonies could not be clearer.
Fighting back

Dogru is challenging the sanctions in European Union courts, a lengthy and
expensive process that could take years, offering him and his family no
immediate relief.

The fact that Dogru has not been charged with any crime and has not been
given any legal due process appears to be precisely the point of the
sanctions.

The EU itself asserts
<https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/why-sanctions/> that
“sanctions are not punitive and instead seek 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.”

Brussels also admits
<https://www.eeas.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/2025/EEAS-3nd-ThreatReport-March-2025-05-Digital-HD.pdf>
that by sanctioning people like Dogru for publishing news and opinions the
EU would prefer to suppress, it is targeting them for “non-illegal”
behavior.

In other words, the European Union is depriving Dogru’s young children of
fundamental rights and needs until their father falls into line with its
policies – a personalized version of Western sanctions wars waged on entire
populations in Cuba, Venezuela, Gaza, Syria, Iraq or Iran.

Dogru, however, is adamant that this will not succeed.

“The only way to fight is to do exactly the opposite of what they want me
to do,” Dogru says. “I’m never going to promote the European security and
foreign policy, so therefore I’m going to fight that.”

Despite the closure of *Red*, Dogru continues to speak out on Twitter/X
<https://x.com/hussedogru>, Instagram <https://www.instagram.com/hussedog>
and YouTube <https://www.youtube.com/@hussedogru>. He also still runs the
@redstreamnet <https://x.com/redstreamnet> account on Twitter/X.

His work includes a documentary on Palestinian resistance
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfwlZhUmGB0> to Israeli colonization,
apartheid and settler terror, filmed in the occupied West Bank in 2022.

For Dogru, it is no coincidence that he – with his particular focus on
Palestine and the genocide in Gaza – is the first EU citizen to be
sanctioned on EU soil.

“They’re testing it with me because shutting down Palestinian voices or
pro-Palestinian voices is right now the most acceptable,” Dogru says. “And
once they achieve that and set a precedent, they will come after all
non-pro-Palestinian voices as well.”
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