"Socio-economic death sentence" makes it illegal to receive even food or medicine from a third party.

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. “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.”

  • Pirasp@lemmy.world
    62·
    3 months ago

    Im quite obviously aginst sanctioning people into being unable to live, but I’m also quite curious about those Russian propaganda connections mentioned.

    At any rate, to my understanding this kind of treatment is fundamentally incompatible with the German constitution.

    • chaogomu@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      3 months ago

      From the EU website (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=OJ%3AL_202500965)

      Hüseyin Doğru is the founder and representative of AFA Medya A.Ş. which is a media company based in Istanbul. AFA Medya A.Ş. operates “RED”, which comprises a number of media platforms, and which has close financial and organisational connections with Russian state propaganda entities and actors, and shares deep structural ties, including interlinkages between, and rotation of, individual personnel with Russian state media organisations.

      RED has used its media platforms – often publishing under “redstreamnet” or “thered.stream” – to 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.

      During a violent occupation of a German university by anti-Israel rioters, RED personnel coordinated with the occupiers to disseminate images of their vandalism – which included the use of Hamas symbols – through their online channels, thus providing them with an exclusive media platform, facilitating the violent nature of the protest.

      Through AFA Medya, Hüseyin Doğru thus supports actions by the Government of the Russian Federation which undermine or threaten stability and security in the Union and in one or several of its Member States, including by indirectly supporting and facilitating violent demonstrations and engaging in coordinated information manipulation.

      They also claim his nationality as Turkey, and his address being in Istanbul.

      This was Dogru’s legal response from last year. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ%3AC_202504627

      This one does list his citizenship as German. https://www.opensanctions.org/entities/Q134594800/

      I’m not finding a whole lot more, from either perspective. Just news articles from the time of the sanctions being announced. https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/germany-says-russia-using-media-platform-red-sow-discontent-2025-07-02/

      Outside information here is sparse.