The crackdown on journalism in Europe is very slowly starting to get more attention.
Jan Ralske was born in Wichita County, Texas. He is a director and writer, known for Not a Love Song (1997), Nicht besiegt (1990) and Der Partisan (1993). He lives in Berlin.
Cross-posted from Counterpunch
In 2018 the European Union (EU) decided to end “daylight savings time”. Yet eight years later, in 2026, they still haven’t enacted that decision. It’s “complicated” says the EU.
But the EU wasted no time in enacting drastic measures to “sanction” its own citizens; no debate necessary, no delay. The EU literally destroyed the most basic freedoms of a handful of its own citizens, their economic existence and even their right to travel disappeared overnight. In a millisecond, with the push of a button and a press release from the European Council, who are not even publically elected by Europe’s residents.
The people sanctioned, Jacques Baud (Swiss), Hüseyin Dogru (German), Alina Lipp (German) , Nathalie Yamb (Swiss/Cameroon), and Thomas Röper (German) are journalists and have appeared in different media outlets as authors/commentators. The political opinions of those sanctioned are varied but they share a common denominator: the EU claims they sow “disinformation” and “division”. Those sanctioned had no chance for defense, no chance to plead their case: they were not even informed that they had been sanctioned, until their bank accounts were closed or reports suddenly appeared in the media that they had become “un-persons”.
This brutal punishment for publishing opinion/facts goes beyond a Kafkaesque nightmare. It is truly a method from a dystopian world where your existence can be disappeared with no trace. No bank account, no travel, no help/payment from others allowed. In fact, on January 15th 2026, German parliament passed a law that threatens anyone who financially helps an EU-sanctioned person with a 5-10 year prison sentence.
Perhaps the most extreme case of repression against journalists is that of Hüseyin Dogru in Berlin, who was the first EU citizen to be sanctioned last year. His reporting was unrelated to the Ukraine conflict but the EU claims sanctioned him as a “strawman” for Russian propaganda. Recently, even the monthly $500 “humanitarian access” withdrawal from his own account that the EU had allowed for food for himself and his newborn twins has been blocked. The EU is effectively starving one of its own citizens and his family, with no escape, no defense. Dogru cannot even apply for unemployment benefits or welfare. Nor can he leave Europe to escape the sanctions and start a new life elsewhere: travel is forbidden. The punishment aimed at Mr. Dogru is perhaps more subtle than when they put Julian Assange behind bars, but at least they gave Assange food and (finally) a day in court. And even more terrifying: unlike Assange, Dogru’s case has barely been publicized.
Hüseyin Dogru ran a social media outlet called “RED”, which published information about historical and current events from a leftist perspective. It was wildly popular, with over 500 million views in the first part of 2024. This raised some concern, especially because of RED’s reporting on Palestine. First RED’s YouTube channel was shut down, then its Instagram channel disappeared. He still maintains a limited presence on Twitter (“X”) where he at least tires to make his current plight public. The other sanctioned journalists were attacked specifically for their critical stance on the EU’s support for the Ukraine in the Ukraine-Russia war. But Hüseyin Dogru had criticized Russia’s military operation as an “invasion” from the start.
His “crime” apparently really was his unwavering support 1 for Palestine and his extensive network of people on the ground in the Middle East. It was this network that allegedly disturbed the EU most, since the vast majority of Western “news” outlets limit their reporting on Palestine to IDF press releases, or rely on USA government statements. With RED, here was a news outlet that had people reporting on-the-ground in difficult conflict zones. That evidently also worried the USA State department: in September 2024, at press conference, Secretary Blinken made the false accusation that RED was a front for a Russian media empire. He was simply repeating the false claims of the Berlin newspaper “Der TAGESSPIEGEL” which has been one of the most active German media giants defending Israel’s military actions in Gaza and Libanon. Interestingly, the newspaper, TAGESSPIEGEL, and its unwavering solidarity with Israel is an typical example of German schizophrenia: Georg von Holtzbrinck, the first owner of the TAGESSPIEGEL was an early Nazi Party member who had published Nazi propaganda newspapers during the 3rd Reich, but that’s a different story. In any case, Blinken amplified the TAGESSPIEGEL’s baseless accusations against Dogru, specifically citing the claims of this German newspaper that RED was a front for the Russians, and thus endouraged the EU to “respond”.
Since Hüseyin Dogru lives in Berlin, and Germany is the most powerful ally of Israel in the EU, it was obvious which EU member had pushed for him to be sanctioned. Yet at recent press conferences, when repeatedly questioned about the justification and “evidence” against Mr. Dogru, the German government refused to answer, claiming it is “an EU decision” not a decision of the German government! Not only was there no judicial procedure, no court hearing, but when Hüseyin Dogru’s lawyer petitioned the EU Council to see the “evidence” used to condemn Dogru, all the EU sent him was a series of social media screenshots. The EU simultaneously forbid any publishing of this “evidence”. The documentation provided was so absurd, Hüseyin Dogru felt compelled to disobey that demand (what else did he have to lose) and he published the evidence provided by the European Council for its extreme actions. The evidence can be viewed HERE 2 . It is really worth reading what exactly the EU/Germany considered “proof” of Dogru’s “division/disinformation”. It is absolutely mind-boggling. Of course they had no proof of Russian funding of RED. Hüseyin Dogru points out: “They may have attacked me personally, but the real target is YOU, all of our society.” His warning is reminiscent of Edward Snowden’s alarming message: “What kind of world do we want to live in?” It is ironic (or illegal?) to reflect on the fact that Snowden had to flee to Russia to escape Western repression.
The fact that powerful forces in the EU have not only exited the field of rational debate, but react with extreme repression against those deemed “enemies” should frighten us all. Yet to this day, almost no major German news outlet has reported on the sanctioning of Hüseyin Dogru. In fact, when the “Network for Critical Journalism” met last week in Berlin for a conference, they refused Hüseyin Dogru entrance. Institutional racism in German media is worse than in most other EU countries. When originally sanctioning Hüseyin Dogru, Germany/EU incorrectly listed Dogru as “a Turkish citizen” living in Berlin. He grew up in Germany and is a German citizen, but it appears that, for the officials, there are different classes of German citizens. Meanwhile, there has been mainstream reporting and criticism about the sanctioning of Jacques Baud, even in Germany: after all he is white, Swiss, and a former military man. The Swiss government has intervened at the European Council on Baud’s behalf, but currently he too remains sanctioned, his bank account frozen. The other Swiss national, Natalie Yamb, was sanctioned before Baud. She is known as a Pan-African nationalist and also has Cameroonian citizenship but has received no support from the Swiss government. It seems that in Switzerland too, there are different classes of Swiss citizens.
Jacques Baud’s case is particularly interesting: like Yamb, the sanctions were enacted because of his criticism of the West’s actions regarding the war in Ukraine. The EU statement accuses him of being “a mouthpiece for pro-Russian propaganda “. This seems particularly odd, since Baud was a Colonel in the Swiss Army and had worked as a military analyst for NATO. He was trained by the American and British intelligence services, and participated in programs aimed at assisting Ukraine. So how far is the current EU elite willing to go to criminalize any person who dares to question EU policies?
The internationally renowned “Lemkin Institute for the Prevention of Genocide” has recently expressed criticism of what is described as a “European Censorship Regime” 3. Germany is singled out as the main punitive force, effectively “outsourcing repression to the EU”. The fact that the majority of those sanctioned are German speakers supports this claim. Nazi propaganda minister Josef Goebbels once claimed, “We are not keeping it secret, the airwaves belong to us, nobody else” 4, in enacting a Nazi agenda called “Gleichschaltung”, which regulated conformity in all aspects of cultural/social life. Is it really an exaggeration to suggest that such an agenda is being revived by the EU under a new banner?
But perhaps there is light at the end of this repressive tunnel: recently, Spain renewed the push 5 to do away with Daylight Saving Time in Europe.
Good night and good luck.
Notes.
1 https://x.com/hussedogru/status/2014295112298135883?s=20
2 https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1963135039274709321.html
4 https://x.com/SmakSmik/status/1962195159564869841?s=20
5 https://www.politico.eu/article/spain-sanchez-restarts-push-eu-finally-end-daylight-saving-time/
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