“The ‘civil death’ of Hüseyin Doğru.”
A 21st century narrative of dread.
7 April—It will be a year ago next month that Hüseyin Doğru, a German journalist residing in Berlin, has lived under European Union sanctions. He is the first German citizen to find his name on the E.U.’s list of “offenders” guilty of no offense, its Kafkaesque “Sanctions Tracker,” and the first European journalist to be so designated simply for practicing his craft.
There are more Catch–22s in Doğru’s case than Joseph Heller could ever have conjured. After his bank accounts were frozen last year the German government allowed him access to €506 of his own funds monthly—this to support a family of five—but his bank then refused to release even this pitiful sum. Doğru has just lost an appeal to free these funds, the German government referring him to the E.U. and the E.U. to the German government.
The European Council, comprised of foreign ministers from the E.U.’s 27 members, acts extra-judicially when it adds another name to its sanctions list. As with others on it, the Council acknowledged that Doğru had committed no crime when—suddenly, with no prior advisory, no hearing, no evidence of wrongdoing—it imposed its Draconian sanctions on him on 20 May last year. He now awaits a ruling in the European General Court, the last resort short of the European Court of Justice. But the General Court may decide that it has no jurisdiction in the case, since the Council imposes sanctions outside any juridical process.
Pascal Lottaz recently spoke to Doğru on his Neutrality Studies webcast, a 51–minute exchange well worth watching. What Doğru describes is what we call lawlessness in the name of law—a condition The Floutist has previously considered in its pages and, prevalent as this is, we intend to revisit.
Having followed Doğru’s case for some time, it lately assumes in my mind the character of a parable, a 21st century narrative of dread in which we can all read ourselves. The entrapment of the individual who resides in one of the Western post-democracies, the suffocating burden of a bureaucracy from which there is no escape, a regime of irrationality from which there is no exit: This is not Hüseyin Doğru’s story alone.
The following was published in Consortium News on the last day of March, when Doğru’s resources had run out and he was faced with the prospect of not being able to feed his three children—infant twins and a seven-year old. The Floutist republishes it with these thoughts in mind.
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The following note appeared in the thread of my “X” account at 7:47 on Saturday, morning. It was posted by Hüseyin Doğru, a German journalist who lives, such as he and his family can, under European Union sanctions:
!! HUMANITARIAN EMERGENCY CALL !!!
As of yesterday, German authorities seized the bank accounts of my wife. She is not sanctioned and has committed no crime. As of now we have only ca. 104 euros left — with two newborn babies and one 7–year-old child!!!
Hüseyin Doğru is not given to histrionics or self-dramatizations, if this is what you’re thinking. He has been on the E.U.’s (increasingly long) sanctions list since May 20 of last year. While Doğru joins others dedicated to the truth of our time and the defense of their own integrity, he is the first E.U. citizen to be sanctioned while residing in Europe and the first journalist to land on the list because of his work.
What is Doğru’s crime? Don’t ask: He has not committed one, has not been charged with one, and has not been permitted any opportunity to respond in court to those accusing him of… of practicing his profession and exercising his rights to free expression.
I will get to the particulars of the official documents in a sec. For now, this: Hüseyin Doğru, whose family is of Turkish origin, was born in Berlin and is a German citizen. As a journalist he has been critical of Israel, taken a strong position against the genocide in Gaza and written in support of the Palestinian cause. More later.
With the seizure of his spouse’s bank accounts last Friday, Doğru and his family now face what amounts to a starvation blockade of the kind the Trump regime (not to change the subject) currently imposes on Cuba and Israel imposes on Gaza.
This story reads like something out of Dostoyevsky or Kafka, I have to say. We are talking about a family of five going hungry in the capital of the Federal Republic of Germany as punishment for… what?... for seeing with his eyes open, for thinking about what he sees, then commenting on what he sees?
I would love to suggest various ways readers could support the Doğru family, but there are none. Were someone to donate so much as a loaf of bread to help sustain them the German authorities would count it a criminal offense punishable by a prison term of up to several years.
I discussed this question of assistance with a German friend over the weekend. The only way to come to the aid of Hüseyin Doğru, we determined, would be to hand him, in person, an envelope of euros or a bag of groceries. And this would be to take a risk, of course.
The above quoted social media post was addressed to some names readers will recognize: Yanis Varoufakis, Stella Assange, Alan MacLeod, Clare Daly, Mary Kostakidis, Chris Hedges and on down a long list. The best coverage of the Doğru case I have seen has appeared in Berliner Zeitung, which I have read courtesy of the translations sent me by Eva–Maria Föllmer Müller, a German friend and colleague.
As to the rest of European media, including Germany’s, there has been a resolute silence these past 11 months. In a series of social media posts over the weekend, Doğru reported that many people have written — your columnist is among them — to offer him and his family some mode of support.
Here are two of his replies:
People ask me what we can do. Legally, I cannot comment, as it could link me to the act and put my family at risk. All I can say is that resisting injustice through civil disobedience is legitimate and morally justified.
And then this:
Also a call to journalists who know about my case and had access to the files — you chose to stay silent. You are also responsible for the situation of my children.
On March 15 Berliner Zeitung published an interview with Alexander Gorski, Doğru’s attorney. Here is a little of what Gorski said when asked how nearly a year’s sanctions has affected Doğru life:
The impact on him and his family is devastating. From one day to the next, his accounts were frozen. He is not permitted to conduct any financial transactions and must have every use of his assets approved by the Bundesbank. Currently, only €506 per month are authorized, with which he must make ends meet…. Furthermore, his bank, Comdirect, repeatedly imposes additional restrictions on the use of these €506…. The risk of committing a criminal offense by having financial contact with my client is very high…. Leading a normal family life under these circumstances is virtually impossible. This situation is often described as “civil death” — and that is exactly what applies here….
Nine days after this interview appeared, the District Court in Frankfurt am Main rejected an emergency appeal Gorski filed, requiring Doğru’s bank to unblock funds he needs to meet routine obligations—fees to service providers, insurance payments, and the like. The court ruled that Doğru has no “right to an injunction.”
It was four more days until, last Saturday, the Central Office of Sanctions Enforcement, a federal authority in Berlin, seized the accounts of Doğru’s spouse.
This is the same treatment accorded others on the E.U. sanctions list. “Civil death” is precisely the term.
Jacques Baud, the noted Swiss commentator, is prominent among these others. The paying-attention population of Europe was shocked when he was sanctioned, last December, a case I wrote of in The Floutist under the headline, “Free Speech and its Enemies.”
Here is Baud’s entry in the E.U. Sanctions Tracker, the list of those the E.U. has summarily blacklisted:
Jacques Baud, a former Swiss army colonel and strategic analyst, is a regular guest on pro–Russian television and radio programmes. He acts as a mouthpiece for pro–Russian propaganda and makes conspiracy theories, for example accusing Ukraine of orchestrating its own invasion in order to join NATO.
Hüseyin Doğru rap sheet is similarly preposterous. In sum, the E.U. runs miles with his previous association with a now-defunct digital channel called Redfish, which was partly funded by a subsidiary of the Novosti–RT group.
Here is an extract from Doğru’s entry in the E.U. Sanctions Tracker. His case is No. 20 in the document linked here. In it you find a salad of factual inaccuracies along with the beyond-flimsy case it purports to document against him:
RED [Redfish] 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….
Through AFA Medya [a media company based in Istanbul, the purported sponsor of “RED”], 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….
This is a hard bouncing ball to follow, as readers may note. Doğru wrote critically of Israel and the Gaza genocide (among various other topics, including German foreign policy) and this was in the service of spreading Russian disinformation in the cause of destabilizing E.U. member states.
Got it?
When Berliner Zeitung asked Alexander Gorki, Doğru’s attorney, why the E.U. singled out Doğru, he replied, “We don’t know that. What we observe, however, is that the German government, in particular, is cracking down on people who express dissenting opinions on the Russia–Ukraine war or the issue of Palestine.”
Just parenthetically, Doğru opposed the Russian intervention in Ukraine and quit Redfish in protest immediately after it began in February 2022.
“The Commission in Brussels banned him, a European Union citizen, from the European Union,” Yanis Varoufakis remarked in the course of an appearance on The Chris Hedges Report last week. “They turned him into a non-person, ‘an asset of Putin,’ just because they could.”
It is those last four words that rattle me most. They resonate across the Western post-democracies.
Footnote: As we went to press, Hüseyin Doğru posted on “X” news that the German authorities have unfrozen his wife’s bank accounts.
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Eva–Maria Föllmer–Müller contributed invaluable research and translations.
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We have been unusually busy these past days, traveling back to Switzerland, preparing lectures we are due to deliver here this week. We thank our subscribers and readers for their patience. And we hope all who are observant had a Happy Easter or Passover.
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Is this what western civilization has come to? Unspeakable.
Some human rights group in Germany needs to get that family out of the country by any means necessary, in as secretive a way as possible. Move another family with the right number of people/babies into the house to be decoys, and then get. them. out. of. there.