• Freezing accounts is a preventative measure. The German government must have evidence that there’s likely criminal proceeds on these accounts, plus a real risk that these funds would be transferred elsewhere. A court case usually follows fairly quickly.

        If a billionaire is accused of fraud, you wouldn’t want to allow them to transfer all their wealth out of the country before you can fine them, right?

    • mathemachristian[he]@lemmy.ml
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      8 days ago

      Isn’t that deeply disturbing to you? They can enact collective punishment like that and don’t even need to publicize why? This is what they keep telling us to slander the democratic peoples republic of korea

        • 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.

        • mathemachristian[he]@lemmy.ml
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          8 days ago

          Edit: op mended with the journalists account of what happened. This is really scary. https://x.com/hussedogru/status/2038203613567144354

          We don’t know if this is collective punishment, you’ve assumed so but we have no proof of that.

          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?

          I don’t mind protecting people’s privacy and publicizing what crimes someone has been accused of

          She is already facing the sentencing though. The punishment is already doled out, without a trial.

          The people whose accounts are concerned will receive the reason why the accounts were blocked. They too haven’t publicized it.

          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.

          • Her husband is a pro-palestine journalist and she gets her bank accounts frozen because of it what else would you call it?

            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.

            • orc girly@lemmy.ml
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              7 days ago

              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

                • orc girly@lemmy.ml
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                  6 days ago

                  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.