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this post was submitted on 28 Mar 2026
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We don't know if this is collective punishment, you've assumed so but we have no proof of that.
I don't mind protecting people's privacy and publicizing what crimes someone has been accused of, since just the accusation can have serious consequences. Imagine someone is accused of terrorism, this gets out to all the neighbours, and finally the judge clears their name; will those neighbours still trust them?
The people whose accounts are concerned will receive the reason why the accounts were blocked. They too haven't publicized it.
Edit: op mended with the journalists account of what happened. This is really scary. https://x.com/hussedogru/status/2038203613567144354
Do you think they'll just come out and say that? Her husband is a pro-palestine journalist and she gets her bank accounts frozen because of it what else would you call it?
She is already facing the sentencing though. The punishment is already doled out, without a trial.
There is no formal charge, there is no trial, the EU can just sanction you apparently and you have to fight them while under sanction.
Apparently the husband tried to (perhaps unwittingly) circumvent the sanctions placed on him through the accounts of his wife. That will get your accounts frozen alright.
I also don't quite buy the whole narrative that he was sanctioned strictly for being pro-Palestine. There's loads of journalists telling the Palestinian side of things, hell even a lot of state media is pretty critical of Israel these days.
I've seen the "evidence pack" that Dogru published (even though we have no idea if that's a complete story). There's definitely some stuff in there that I'd classify as pro-Kremlin falsehoods.
There's also definitely some dishonesty going on from his side: he publicly claims he has no money left and can't withdraw anything from his accounts (or his wife's). But that's simply not true, as he and his wife are both allowed to withdraw enough money to cover basic needs (not even to mention the social safety nets that Germany has, there's no reason for his kids to go hungry).
He's also stated he believes the invasion of Ukraine to be an illegal act by Russia, yet simultaneously promotes the viewpoint that NATO started a proxy war in Ukraine. There's also some very precise wording going on, e.g. stating he's not involved with Red anymore after Russia invaded Ukraine, but Red was controlled by AFA Medya, which he was still very much involved with. That same Red was also taking on employees who were also involved with RT.
I think there's some very good reasons that unions and NGOs, which historically have taken on loads of cases of journalists being unfairly censored, aren't touching this guy with a 10ft pole. The appeals process here is imo too nebulous, but regardless I doubt that he'd actually win the appeal.
I was wondering how you could still be defending imperialist narratives and then checked your modlog, you believe in the collective punishment of people through sanctions, you're not human
Sanctions kill over half a million people worldwide every year, from preventable deaths. I'll never agree with that. And with Israel you just need to stop sending them military supplies and other forms of support and they'll fall apart overnight. There's no need to prevent them from buying fucking medicine and food.
Okay, you should be aware that that study you're referring to the numbers of, was done by iirc a scientist linked to a Venezuelan thinktank whose stated purpose is sanctions relief. The study itself also has some questionable methods, for example: if a country previously provided aid in some form, but then stopped, this is counted as a "sanction" and any loss of life is thus included in the figure. So suppose country A supports country B with some aid program, but then B has a violent military coup. A now stops the aid, as there are clear signs that the junta in B is seizing the resources for themselves. The potential deaths the aid could have prevented when the aid was effectively being administered are included in the calculation for a period when that aid more than likely couldn't be effectively administered. Aid programs with a limited duration are also included as "sanctions" once the programs end.
This inflates the numbers in quite a big way. Of course it's still horrid that thousands die due to sanctions, but those numbers don't paint an accurate image (this is not to discount the entire study btw, but it's important to be aware of the nuance here).
Then there's the question of: what is the alternative? Doing nothing at all? Declaring war? Sanctions do have an effect after all. Take apartheid South-Africa, eventually apartheid fell due to the severe economic pressure from international sanctions, spearheaded by India at the time. You'll also have to ask yourself how many more people in SA would have suffered and died if no sanctions had been instated and apartheid had been allowed to fester unopposed internationally. And this effect was never taken into account into the study either.
Of course you could also hypothetically attribute the deaths to whatever triggered the instatement of the sanctions in the first place. If country A declares a war and gets sanctioned because of it, are the extra deaths in country A on the hands of A's government or on the international community applying sanctions?
There's plenty of ideologically motivated sanctions, especially levied by the US, that are total bullshit and just harmful (see: Cuba). I'll always oppose those.
Because he literally couldn't pay bills anymore due to the sanctions! Are you a child? Do you not understand that adults have bills to pay? How do you pay your bills when all your accounts are frozen? She was sanctioned because she paid bills for the family when he no longer could.
Who decides what constitutes as "falsehoods"? Is it illegal to publish speech that contradicts the narrative that the state has declared to be "true"? Clearly the German government doesn't think what he did is illegal because he has not been accused of a crime! These sanctions are entirely extrajudicial. He has violated no laws. The EU just doesn't like his reporting.
According to you, is writing so-called "pro-Kremlin falsehoods" punishable by homelessness and starvation for you and anyone who tries to help you survive? What about pro-NATO falsehoods and pro-EU falsehoods? Or pro-Ukraine falsehoods? What about pro-Israel falsehoods? Why don't we punish those?
It is objectively true and acknowledged even by NATO leaders that the war in Ukraine is a proxy war. And yes it was started by NATO when the US and EU orchestrated the illegal overthrow of the legally elected government in Ukraine by armed fascists to install a proxy puppet which proceeded to start a war on its own people.
There, i said it. Should i now also be sanctioned for saying that? Should my wife be sanctioned for paying my bills when i can no longer do so? Should our children starve because i had the audacity to contradict your sacred narrative?
All entirely irrelevant. None of that is illegal. It is not illegal to work with or for RT (which he doesn't and never did).
They aren't involved because they are either intimidated that they will be targeted next, or because like many Germans, they too are ghouls who support the silencing of pro-Palestinian voices and voices which have been falsely accused of being pro-Russian.
And of course the appeals process is nebulous because it was intentionally designed to be that way! There is no legal appeal, because, once again: the courts were not involved since they committed no crime! They have to appeal to a labyrinthine and unaccountable bureaucracy, and of course they are unlikely to succeed because they are forced to appeal to the very institutions and people who applied these sanctions and who hate him for his uncompromising pro-Palestinian stance.
And ghouls like you will no doubt feel vindicated when he fails because you cannot tolerate dissenting voices and will gleefully celebrate seeing their children starve for their "crime" of saying something you don't like.