Kurdish Women’s Struggle For Gender Equality – And Much Else Besides

For a century, Kurdish women have been at the forefront of the struggle against patriarchal and state oppression. They continue to push boundaries and defend their gains against mounting pressure.

By Nazand Begikhani

April 12, 2026

Source: Le Monde Diplomatique

Yanar Mohammed speaking at a conference in Berlin in 2013.

On 2 March this year, Yanar Mohammed, a prominent feminist figure in Iraq, was shot dead outside her home by two gunmen – the latest in a string of activists killed, likely by units of the Popular Mobilisation Forces, Shia militias (1). A tireless advocate for gender equality, she had spent years campaigning against honour crimes, early and forced marriages, and all forms of violence against women. Based on women’s rights media outlet, such as Newjin, Yanar’s assassination is part of an alarming escalation in gender-based violence currently affecting Iraq and several other countries across the Middle East.

This intensification of violence against women cannot be separated from the context of war, instability and political fragmentation ravaging the region. Kurdistan, divided among four nation-states in the Middle East, remains particularly vulnerable despite a century-long intersectional struggle against multiple forms of patriarchal and state oppression. While Kurdish women are widely recognised for their decisive role in the fight against ISIS – particularly within the fighting forces in Syria and Iraq – they have also remained deeply committed to advancing women’s rights, equality and freedom in their societies.

Legal and institutional reforms in Iraqi Kurdistan

In Iraqi Kurdistan, since the uprising of 1991 women have played a central role in awareness campaigns against inequality and discriminatory practices rooted in certain social traditions and in the Baathist legal system, including the Iraqi Personal Status Law of 1959 and the Iraqi Penal Code number 111 of 1969. Thanks to their persistent mobilisation and determination, and the support of progressive figures within the regional government, Kurdistan achieved several important advances: the recognition of honour crimes as murders without mitigating circumstances, the restriction of polygamy in several jurisdictions, expanded rights to divorce and fairer provisions regarding child custody.

With the rise of cyber violence, the regional parliament – encouraged by a dynamic civil society and supported by reform-minded leaders – in 2008 passed Law No. 6 on Preventing the Misuse of New Information Technologies. The aim was to curb digital harassment, protect victims and ensure accountability for perpetrators. A year later, in 2009, the legal minimum quota for female parliamentarians was increased from 25% to 30% of the legislature.

Women in Kurdistan have also successfully mobilised political elites in support of women’s rights and broader social policies. This effort led to the institutionalisation of women’s issues through the creation of the Combatting Violence Against Women Directorate (2007), the High Council of Women’s Affairs (2011) and the Women’s Rights Monitoring Board (2012), headed at the time by Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani. These initiatives resulted in the establishment of shelters for women at risk and training programmes for judges, law enforcement officers, social workers and government officials. In parallel, the Kurdistan Region encouraged the creation of gender studies centres to analyse these societal challenges, conduct research and produce evidence-based knowledge grounded in feminist and ethical approaches. In 2011 the regional parliament enacted Law No 8 combatting domestic violence, one of the most progressive legal frameworks of its kind in the region.

These reforms have largely remained confined to the Kurdistan Region. In the rest of Iraq where Yanar was particularly active, not only did similar legal progress fail to materialise, but in August 2024 the Iraqi Supreme Court ruled that some reforms passed by the Kurdistan parliament went against sharia law (2). Women saw the decision as a major setback. When the Iraqi parliament subsequently passed the Jaafari Personal Status Code in August 2025, Kurdish women mobilised strongly against it, arguing that the legislation discriminates against women and privileges men in matters of marriage, divorce, inheritance and child guardianship. Yanar campaigned forcefully against the Al-Jaafari Law, arguing that it undermined the rights of women and girls while legitimising discriminatory, religious and tribal interpretations of marriage and women’s legal status.

In the context of the ongoing conflict and war, Hana Shwan – a journalist and prominent feminist figure in Iraqi Kurdistan, who visited women in shelters and prisons last week and whom I interviewed for this article – described how the conflict has acutely intensified uncertainty and fear among the most vulnerable women, particularly those in shelters and prisons, while simultaneously eroding her organisation’s ability to sustain its work in Sulaimaniya, near the border of Iran. Echoing Simone de Beauvoir, she emphasised that the conflict has not produced new inequalities so much as it has exposed and amplified entrenched gender discrimination, deepened structural injustices, and accelerated patterns of interpersonal violence. Natia Navrouzov, a Yazidi lawyer and head of the NGO Yazda based in Duhok with offices in Sinjar, underscored the compounded impact of conflict and violence in the Middle East in exacerbating mental health crises among affected communities. She noted that the ongoing bombardment across the Kurdistan Region has forced her organisation to suspend all field activities, further limiting access to already scarce psychosocial support services.

Despite the many obstacles impeding the these reforms’ implementation – particularly the rise of Islamist influence since the emergence of ISIS in 2014 – women in the Kurdistan region continue to push boundaries and defend their rights. Hana and Natia are two of the visible and courageous examples of this determination.

Women’s achievements in Syria

In Syrian Kurdistan, Rojava, women have also played a decisive role in defeating ISIS, notably during the battles of Raqqa and Kobane. Beyond the battlefield, they have been central to the governance of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) for nearly a decade. Women helped embed gender equality in political and social institutions and supported legal reforms that abolished polygamy, early marriage and certain inequalities in inheritance previously justified through religious interpretations. Under their influence, the co-presidency system – requiring that a man and a woman share political leadership – has become an established principle, not only in Syrian Kurdistan but also within some Kurdish political structures in Turkey.

These achievements are now under serious threat. The Syrian regime launched an offensive this January that resulted in massacres and the occupation of large parts of the Kurdish autonomous region. Nevertheless, women continue to mobilise to protect their political gains. Their vigilance is reinforced by concerns that their institutions may be absorbed into the Syrian governmental system under the agreement reached on 29 January between Ahmed al-Sharaa, Syrian president and a former jihadist, and the Syrian Democratic Forces led by General Mazloum Abdi.

Women’s concerns extend far beyond questions of equality and human rights; they are central to sustainable peacebuilding and long-term security. At a conference held on 2 March at the French Senate in Paris (organised by the Kurdish Institute of Paris), Kurdish journalist Ronahi Hassan from Rojava underscored this urgency, stating: ‘At a time when the region faces renewed instability and extremist threats, the preservation of decentralised governance and institutionalised gender representation is not only a matter of Kurdish rights, but a cornerstone of international security.’

Model of empowerment in Turkey

In Turkey, the Kurdish women’s movement has also made remarkable progress in advancing gender equality, particularly within political and military contexts. Emerging in response to widespread violence, systemic discrimination and the broader dynamics of the conflict with the Turkish state, Kurdish feminists have developed their own model of empowerment, introducing co-leadership systems within political parties and councils, and ensuring that women share decision-making equally with men. In military organisations associated with the feminist movement, women now occupy leadership positions and participate in strategic planning, challenging traditional gender hierarchies and social expectations.

Kurdish women have also confronted deeply rooted feudal and patriarchal norms within their society, promoting women’s autonomy and resisting domestic and community violence. Their initiative has included addressing gaps within the broader Turkish feminist movement, advocating for peace and intersectional approaches that recognise ethnic and political marginalisation. Its influence now extends beyond Kurdistan, inspiring similar initiatives across the wider Middle East (3).

Iran’s Woman, Life, Freedom movement

In Iran, Kurdish women became the driving force behind the Jin, Jiyan, Azadî (‘Woman, Life, Freedom’) movement following the killing of the Kurdish student Jina Mahsa Amini in 2022. For many Kurds, this slogan has become a universal call for dignity and freedom. The movement quickly transcended ethnic boundaries within Iran and challenged the authority of the ruling regime, and went on to become a global symbol of resistance and emancipation. Sahar Bagheri, researcher at the IRIS laboratory in Paris, reflects on this struggle in Rojhelat (Kurdistan of Iran) saying: ‘The struggle of Kurdish women is fundamentally feminist, rooted in the defence of our bodily autonomy and our land as inseparable sites of resistance.’ She adds: ‘As Kurdish women, we remain steadfast in our commitment to Jin, Jiyan, Azadî, asserting ourselves as active political subjects. Our resistance challenges both patriarchal domination and colonial power, insisting that women’s liberation is inseparable from collective self-determination.’

The above examples show that Kurds are not ‘separatist militias’ seeking to challenge borders inherited from 20th-century colonial arrangements, as some recent narratives have suggested. On the contrary, they are well organised actors representing a significant potential for democratic progress and building societies grounded in freedom, equality and universal human rights. These principles stand in stark contrast to the ideological extremism and radical Islamist currents that have destabilised much of the Middle East since the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Nor should Kurds be reduced to a simplistic image of ‘brave warriors’. Instead the international community ought to recognise the values they strive to defend and implement whenever political space allows.

Yanar’s assassination is a stark reminder that democracy remains fragile and that the pursuit of emancipation can provoke new forms of repression and domination. In this context, recognising the strategic importance of women’s struggle for freedom, equality and human dignity is not just a symbolic gesture.Email

Nazand Begikhani

Nazand Begikhani is a poet and Vincent Wright Chair and Lecturer at Sciences Po, Paris.

Elite Cynicism, the Eros Effect and the Future of Resistance Movements

George Katsiaficas

 April 3, 2026

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Vincent Bevins is a journalist of considerable talent. His first book, The Jakarta Method, provided long overdue insight into the 1965 United States manipulation of Indonesian army and Islamic officials that led to the murder of as many as one million people, perhaps even more. For years, US agents provided names and addresses of ‘suspected communists’ and other ‘undesirables.’ Americans were the driving force behind the massive purge. As Bevins points out, Indonesia was a much bigger prize for the United States empire than Vietnam, which cost more than 58,000 American lives and billions of dollars, only to end in absolute failure.

His second book, If We Burn, The Mass Protest Decade And The Missing Revolution, takes as his subject matter contemporary liberation movements in the 2010s. Unlike revelations of government atrocities in The Jakarta Method, If We Burn is quite limited in its breadth of understanding. The subtitle reveals the central problem of his analysis. There was no single ‘mass protest decade.’ Beginning in the 1960s, waves of massive mobilizations have without end swept the world across every decade, from the disarmament movement of the late 1970s and early 1980s, to the concurrent anti-nuclear plant movement in the United States and Germany, the Gwangju People’s Uprising of 1980, which helped usher in the wave of Asian uprisings from 1986 to 1992—the Philippines (1986), South Korea (1987), Burma (1988), Tibet and China (1989), Nepal and Bangladesh (1990) and Thailand (1992)—to the overthrow of Eastern European Soviet regimes, the alter-globalization insurgency from the Zapatistas (1994) to Seattle (1999) and beyond, and to the massive anti-war mobilization of February 15, 2003 when up to 30 million people self-mobilized against the second Iraq war even before it began.

All these insurgencies prepared the ground for the 2011 Arab Spring, which however disastrously it may have ended, helped to ignite Occupy Wall Street in more than 900 cities around the world, as well as Movements of the Squares in Spain and Greece. The continual renewal of rebellions, revolts and revolutions culminates today with Gen Z revolts that have occurred in more than 17 countries and smashed 3 regimes (Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal). This latest episode of the Eros Effect reached a crescendo in September 2025 when insurgents took to the streets in at least 11 countries. These instances of the Eros Effect occur as revolts nourish and inspire each other, increasingly resulting in simultaneous uprisings.

The activation of the Eros Effect is one of the features of the continuing movements since the 1960s. During these magical moments, long-held values (patriotism, hierarchy, patriarchy) suddenly are superseded by emergent values such as cooperation instead of competition, human solidarity in place of nationalism, horizontal forms of decision-making not elite power, and attempts to overcome normally unquestioned dimensions of everyday life such as ethnic prejudice and patriarchal authority. Bevins understands the transcendental experiences of street actions, but only in individual terms. As he discovered, one female participant in Tahrir Square arrived in a state of depression and departed as if a “different universe” had transformed her, something that was “profoundly, unimaginably, beautiful.” An insurgent struck hit in the head by a tear gas canister went to the hospital, where he fixed his eyes on a nearby wounded man, unfamiliar to him, “but in that moment, they were brothers, the feeling was transcendent, and far more powerful than the pain in the back of his skull.” Bevins understands the erotic cathexis in the streets, but only in terms of individuals, not in terms of the crystallization of emergent group identities, of inspiration for future movements.

Bevins is not alone in his failure to comprehend uprisings’ connections to each other. Much of contemporary history and media similarly understand them as separate and discrete events, as unrelated to each other. Seldom does anyone connect the dots. Bevins’ book is not a macro-history. Using his journalistic credentials, he delves into activist circles that congealed after Occupy Wall Street (which he curiously omits) in ten places, including Brazil, Tunisia, Egypt, Turkey, Brazil, Ukraine, Hong Kong, and Chile.

In both of his books, Bevin’s narrative uses a few individuals whom he believes are key “leaders” of movements to encapsulate the movements as a whole. Because these ‘leaders’ fail to realize their own dreams, he believes the movements are failures, that the ‘missing revolution’ never happened. Looking at today’s Gen Z uprisings, we cannot fail to note their continuity with past movements in their spontaneous and joyful eruptions, autonomy from existing political parties, and international solidarity. Continually-regenerating insurgencies in dozens of countries are part of a long-term process, one which will hopefully one day birth a world-historical revolution.

Bevins idea of ‘instant coffee’ revolution leads him to lament “the missing revolution.” His cynicism is quite evident in his dismissal of one of the great outcomes of the Indonesian revolution, the birth of the Third World non-aligned movement. To this day, the conservative government there adheres strictly to an anti-war stance in international relations (although tragically not for domestic aspirations for independence). In a 2025 article, he recalls that the 1955 Bandung Asian-African Conference occurred as “Countries across Asia and Africa threw off the colonial yoke, pushed for a transformation of the global economy and inspired civil rights movements in the US and South Africa. ‘But it all came to nothing of course,’” he says quoting a conservative observer. “By 1965, the pioneers of the Afro-Asian movement had all been cleared out of the way. Sukarno in Indonesia, Nkrumah in Ghana, Lumumba in Congo, all deposed or even murdered.” Again, individual leaders were murdered and marginalized, so does that mean “it all came to nothing.” Pardon me, “nothing”?

Bevins has proven himself capable of detailed research, of accurately portraying events, yet he also allows himself the luxury of speaking authoritatively without doing the necessary research. By creating individual narrators through whom he enunciates his own analysis, he projects onto them his beliefs without having to take responsibility. He quotes one activist who believes the 1960s SDS (Students for a Democratic Society in the US) was created from the media spotlight, that it “didn’t actually exist outside the media.” I beg to differ. For years, SDS built itself from the grassroots. When SDS dissolved itself in 1969 due to internecine differences, it had between 30,000 and 50,000 members, possibly as many as 100,000. When the central office in Chicago was closed down, it had file cabinets stuffed with unopened letters. Local chapters abounded, sometimes more than one even in small cities. The mass media was a factor, but not the primary one.

The jacket of Bevins’ book claims that “From 2010 to 2020 more people participated in protest than at any point in human history.” He selected the Arab Spring, Turkey’s Taksim Park, Ukraine’s (Victoria Ruland-directed uprising, sometimes called) Euromaiden, and movements in Chile and Hong Kong. He devotes a scant four superficial mentions to Occupy Wall Street, despite the participation of hundreds of thousands of people in over 900 cities in 82 countries. Except for one brief mention, he omits the 2014 Black Lives Matter movement in the United States, which involved more than 15 million people (a minimal estimate). He fails to deal with Rojava, arguably one of the most strategic initiatives of the decade, he considers, and all but ignores the Zapatistas. He correctly footnotes international synchronicity and connections, but does not afford them much importance. After Michael Brown’s 2014 murder in Ferguson Missouri, activists across the USA held up both arms chanting “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot!” he mentions that Hong Kong protesters made the same gesture.

In his own words, he understands that “Protest, after all, are communicative events aimed at existing elites.” His misunderstanding of protests as being aimed at elites explains why he does not understand how protests influence each other, how uprisings take off from the successes and failures of previous ones. To give just one example, the savagery of the Korean War interrupted the unification movement in South Korea that had been so robust in 1961 that a US-backed coup d’etat was enacted to stop it. As soon as the U.S.-backed military dictatorship was overthrown decades later, the reunification movement immediately and massively reignited.

Elsewhere, Bevins claims that “the decision to take to the streets and pour huge numbers of people into highly visible public spaces, which can be seen primarily as a media action.” It is incomprehensible to him that protests, rebellions, and uprisings transforms the participants themselves and affect others who are witness to these events. These are some of the primary impacts and effects, not their influence on billionaires and their media. As a professional journalist who worked for several mass media outlets like London’s Financial Times, the LA Times, and Washington Post, Bevins focuses on novel and dramatic actions but overlooks less conspicuous dimensions.

By helicoptering into several locations at discrete points in time, Bevins comes to the conclusion that he has uncovered a missing ingredient for revolution: centralized leadership. Sadly, he did not pause to consider the outcome of the Bolshevik revolution, of their suppression of the popular movement for the benefit of rule by the Party. More importantly, he seems unaware that in order for people to live in a free society, we must first free ourselves from ingrained patterns of domination and passive acquiescence to power. Indeed, as Marcuse pointed out, we must liberate ourselves even from instinctual needs before a genuine revolution is possible. Ongoing uprisings are an important means to free ourselves. The transformation of human beings involved in insurgencies is one of their most significant outcomes. The self-formation of the human species proceeds through labor and art, yet uprisings are also an important dimension of this process.

Bevins’ role as an outsider, a professional journalist making his living by writing about movements, is evident when he concludes that they were “strange events of the decade.” Strange? Or beautiful?  For sometime now, journalists, celebrities, and academics have sought to influence movements according to their outsider understandings. Nearly all such celebrities condemn militant street actions as counterproductive or even harmful. Perhaps the most extreme of such critics is Chris Hedges, whose outbursts are notorious. As recent Gen Z uprisings have shown, militant tactics have accomplished more in days than many movements have achieved in decades. So long as we allow our insurgencies to be influenced by celebrity outsiders, their cynical judgments will negatively impact our resistance.

George Katsiaficas is the author of The Subversion of Politics. 

Europe Is Sanctioning Critics of Israel and Militarism

Sanctions were once sold as a gentler foreign policy tool for exerting pressure on dictatorships and terrorist organizations. Yet measures like banning individuals from having bank accounts or traveling are increasingly used to chill free speech in Europe.

By Caspar Shaller

March 21, 2026

Source: Jacobin

European Parliament - Question time with Ursula Von der Leyen

Imagine you’re at the supermarket one day, but weirdly your card doesn’t work. You try to check your account online, and it doesn’t let you log in. You call the bank, but it tells you that it’s unable to disclose any information about why this is happening. At home, you try to find out what happened, perhaps googling your name. And then you find out: your name has ended up on a sanctions list. Only weeks later do you get an official letter informing you about your new status. The letter itself is strewn with errors. It’s unclear what exactly you’re meant to have done wrong. And there’s nothing to tell you how you can defend yourself.

Recently, such cases have become ever more common. Economic and travel sanctions imposed by the United States or the European Union, originally intended as a gentler alternative to military intervention or police measures against dictatorships and human rights violators, are increasingly targeting individuals and organizations whose politics are deemed beyond the pale. Several cases have caused an international stir in recent months.

In August 2025, Nicolas Guillou, a French judge at the International Criminal Court, found himself locked out of the financial system and most online services. Why? Because the United States had placed him on a sanctions list that also includes al-Qaeda members, drug smugglers, and Vladimir Putin, simply because the court issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Five other ICC judges and three prosecutors have also ended up on the sanctions list.

Meanwhile, in Germany, the closure of the accounts of legal aid organization Rote Hilfe, the German Communist Party (DKP), and other left-wing organizations made headlines. The US government has declared “Antifa” a terrorist organization, so banks that want to operate using US-based systems such as the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) are pressured to stop supporting this vaguely defined group, for instance by debanking organizations that have provided legal aid to those associated with Antifa.

The EU is also ramping up pressure through sanctions. German bloggers Alina Lipp and Thomas Röper have been sanctioned since May 2025. Jacques Baud, a former employee of the Swiss intelligence service, military analyst, and regular commentator on the international Russian news channel RT, ended up on a sanctions list due to alleged support for Putin, by which EU authorities mean his pro-Russian analyses of Western policy in the run-up to the war in Ukraine. Lipp and Röper are right-wing bloggers who live in Russia; the sanctions have little impact on their daily lives. Baud, however, lives in Brussels, in the heart of the EU. All his accounts were frozen until he was granted a “humanitarian exemption” in early February. The measures also include travel restrictions: Baud is not allowed to leave Belgium, not even to travel to his home country, Switzerland, whose government wants to intervene on his behalf. A French citizen was also placed on the list with the same sanctions package.

“Reduced to Zero”

One case that deserves special attention is that of German journalist Hüseyin Doğru. Since the EU placed him on a sanctions list in May 2025, he has had no access to his accounts and is not allowed to travel. Doğru lives in Berlin and is much more affected by the sanctions than others. “You can’t even buy me a coffee,” says Doğru during an interview in Berlin. “In theory, I’m not even allowed to help myself to anything in the fridge after my wife went shopping.” The German Bundesbank, which is in charge of enforcing sanctions, granted him an exemption to withdraw a minimum subsistence allowance of €506 a month  from his bank account. And even this tiny sum was temporarily blocked by his bank. “I can’t feed my newborn babies,” says Doğru. “On an existential level, you’re reduced to zero.”

Doğru was editor in chief of the portal red., which specializes in anti-colonial perspectives. Red. has ceased operations due to the sanctions. Doğru’s case is unique because of the official reason for his punishment: his is the only entry in the sanctions regime RUSDA, which punishes alleged support for Russia, that refers to coverage of the Middle East conflict. Doğru, his company AFA Medya, and the website red. allegedly supported Russian attempts to “undermine or threaten stability and security in the [European] Union” by supporting “violent demonstrations” and “systematically spreading false information.” The EU accuses Doğru of maintaining “close financial and organisational connections with Russian state propaganda entities.” The EU claims that Doğru “shares deep structural ties, including interlinkages between, and rotation of, individual personnel with Russian state media organisations.”

The allegedly “violent” demonstration refers to the occupation of Humboldt University in Berlin by pro-Palestinian activists in 2024. Because Doğru reported on the occupation on his website, he is said to have created a platform for the “rioters” to spread the ideology and symbols of terrorist groups such as Hamas. Does reporting on protests against the German government or its allies constitute an exercise of a fundamental right in a democracy or political subversion on behalf of a hostile power? For the EU, it’s the latter.

The sanctions were preceded by a series of articles in German newspapers that sought to prove Doğru’s political proximity to and financing by the Russian government. Doğru seems to have found himself in journalists’ crosshairs due to his extensive reporting on the war in Gaza and the repression of pro-Palestinian demonstrations in Germany. One of the journalists is still hounding Doğru, sending press requests to organizers of panels that he has spoken at to make sure he does not get paid in contravention of the sanctions.

Doğru firmly rejects the EU’s accusations. “Red. has never received financial support from Russia or Russian broadcasters,” he emphasizes. The outlet was partially financed from his savings, Doğru says, but mainly from donations. There were, however, indirect links to Russian media. Before founding red., Doğru worked for Redfish, which produced video content and documentaries for the video agency Ruptly, a subsidiary of RT. The EU classifies RT as a propaganda tool and has blocked it in Europe. But is it illegal to have worked for a subsidiary of a subsidiary of a channel that was legal at the time? RT and Ruptly experienced a staff exodus after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Redfish ceased operations. Doğru then founded red. Some of its employees had previously worked at Redfish. Doğru emphasizes that Ruptly and RT never exercised any control over content at Redfish. Redfish also produced videos that took a critical look at Russian politics, such as the Kashmir conflict and antiwar protests following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Working with Ruptly, Doğru says, was simply an opportunity to produce left-wing journalism that otherwise would have been difficult to finance.

According to Doğru, the reporting on the Humboldt occupation was normal journalistic practice. “Our sources informed us in advance about an upcoming political intervention,” so he reported on his exclusive access, as any journalist would do. “Apparently, the state was bothered by our critical reporting on the repression of pro-Palestinian activists here in Germany.”

Chilling Effect

Doğru’s case raises serious questions about freedom of expression in Europe. Who decides what constitutes acceptable journalism and what constitutes propaganda that must be suppressed? What exactly is disinformation — is it simply a different interpretation of facts? Can opinions be sanctioned as disinformation? The EU is making an example of Doğru. It’s a warning: if journalists report in a way we don’t like, we can destroy your lives. The chilling effect is already having an impact: Doğru has received little (public) solidarity from left-wing politicians, journalists, or the media. Some left-wing publications refused to report on the case at all; Doğru is too tainted by the accusations of being pro-Putin. The few attempts to help Doğru have been blocked. German newspaper Junge Welt wanted to give Doğru a job but was informed by the Bundesbank that that would constitute prohibited economic aid. To date, despite repeated inquiries by his lawyer, Doğru has not gotten a concrete answer as to whether he is allowed to work.

“Journalists are being deprived of their professional and material existence through sanctions or debanking; that is an attack on freedom of the press and freedom of expression,” says Ezra Abendrot, a spokesperson for Rote Hilfe. “The fact that Hüseyin Doğru is listed in EU sanctions demonstrates how far-reaching and arbitrary these instruments can be.” Rote Hilfe itself has fallen victim to such sanctions. Last fall, a local bank blocked the organization’s accounts. The expansion of sanctions lists and measures such as debanking should be “seen in the context of escalating authoritarianism and persecution of political dissent,” according to Abendrot. Like in other areas of repression, the Kurdish movement was an early victim of such measures in Germany. In 2015, for example, a local bank closed a donation account for Rojava.

Anyone trying to understand this ever-expanding sanctions apparatus will come across London-based law professor Eva Nanopoulos’s work. She is concerned that sanctions today rarely draw scrutiny. When the system was greatly expanded by the EU in the wake of 9/11 as part of the “war on terror,” there was still a lot of criticism of these executive measures, which lacked due legislative process and were not subject to criminal proceedings. Today, Nanopoulos says, sanctions are “far more draconian,” but criticism has almost died down. “We seem to have simply accepted the claim that certain forms of terrorism require extraordinary measures,” she says.

Sanctions have long been considered a gentler alternative to military intervention. Nanopoulos considers this narrative of “smart sanctions,” which supposedly target specific individuals and spare the general population, a liberal myth. Such instruments are not humanitarian innovations of the 1990s but were developed earlier by the United States in the context of the Cold War and the “war on drugs.” According to some estimates, sanctions against Iraq in the 1990s, which were purported to only target the leadership, led to the deaths of around 500,000 children, mainly due to the blockade of medicines. However, Nanopoulos also calls for a fundamental debate on sanctions: “We should not judge sanctions as good or bad based on their effect. We need to have a fundamental discussion about the kind of exercise of power we are witnessing here.”

Defenseless

Over the last few years, the system has ballooned. The EU alone maintains thirty-three sanction regimes affecting almost six thousand individuals, organizations, and governments. These sanctions include measures such as arms embargoes, travel restrictions, and economic and financial blockades against actors from specific countries such as Belarus or Iran but also transnational regimes, including sanctions packages aimed at preventing the proliferation of chemical weapons or terrorist organizations. The sanctions regime related to the war in Ukraine accounts for the most cases by far. The number of new organizations sanctioned each year has exploded since the early 2000s, from only about a hundred cases to several hundred new entries per year — even over a thousand in 2022 after Russia invaded Ukraine. Now sanctions are increasingly affecting EU citizens. “We’re witnessing the classic imperial boomerang,” says Nanopoulos. “What we introduced to take action against others is now coming back to haunt us.”

In Doğru’s telling, sanctions are a Kafkaesque system. “There is no court, no trial, no defense, no charges, no evidence. You have to figure out how to get out of it yourself.” In theory, you have thirty days after the sanctions package is enacted to lodge an appeal with the EU Council of Ministers. However, Doğru only received a letter informing him of the sanctions weeks after they came into force — and it was sent to the address of a coworking space in Istanbul used by AFA Medya as an office, rather than to his Berlin home. Moreover, the letter contained fundamental factual errors: Doğru is listed as a Turkish citizen, even though he has been a German citizen since his naturalization. Doğru’s lawyer was at least able to get his wife’s accounts (she is not on the list herself) unblocked. He was also granted access to the files, so that Doğru now at least knows exactly what he is accused of. Yet he is not allowed to publish this information.

Even if everything goes by the book, it’s still not easy to defend oneself. Sanctions lists are created in a highly opaque process: national governments propose names to the EU Council of Ministers, which then decides on sanctions measures. Prior national prosecution is not required. This is because sanctions do not address criminal offenses but political misdeeds. The documents on which the decisions are based and the minutes of the Council of Ministers meetings at which the decisions are made are classified as confidential, often in the name of alleged security interests. This means that they cannot be accessed by the public or those affected and their lawyers. “It’s actually quite clever to use such lists to circumvent the principles of the rule of law that would otherwise apply in one’s own country,” says Nanopoulos. It seems unlikely that this system is legal. An expert opinion commissioned by the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance in the European Parliament and written by Ninon Colneric, a former judge at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, concluded last fall that sanctions such as those imposed on Doğru violate both EU and international law, particularly because the accusation of disinformation is so vague. In particular, denying the right to a hearing before sanctions are imposed appears both disproportionate and unlawful.

How Europeans would counter American sanctions is even less clear. In 1996, the EU enacted a so-called blocking statute, which is intended to prevent the extraterritorial effect of US law on European soil. Updates in 2018 and 2021 explicitly prohibit European organizations and companies from implementing laws that harm European citizens. “But today, there seems to be little will in European politics to implement [the EU’s] own laws to protect its own citizens,” notes Nanopoulos. Rote Hilfe has had some success at this level: a regional court ruled that German and European law apply, and not the political decisions of an “authoritarian foreign government.” This means Rote Hilfe’s accounts remain open, for the time being.

However, legal means alone will not be enough to overcome this system, notes Ezra Abendrot of Rote Hilfe. Authoritarian measures are a political problem and need to be combated politically. But resistance to the sanctions system is not looking good. At the beginning of February, the German Bundestag implemented an EU directive aimed at harmonizing the implementation of sanctions at the national level. With the amendment, violations of sanctions officially become criminal offenses. The new law amounts to a massive tightening of the rules. Only the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) voted against it, while the Greens and the Left abstained.

While the West increasingly resorts to sanctions, or war, in the name of resisting other states’ alleged authoritarianism, within its own borders it is also building up a set of instruments that undermine the rule of law and the guarantees that come with it. Ironically, in the name of defending freedom, liberal democracies are producing the same authoritarian practices that they claim to be fighting elsewhere.