"Traugott Ickeroth" is not a well-known blog. The three people operating the website earn an estimated €45,000 annually solely from reader donations. One of the operators also uses the pen name "Traugott Ickeroth" to publish various pamphlets and articles about "extra-dimensional aliens" and "Illuminati."
But European governments decided to target these three individuals as a warning to others. Last week, the European Court of Justice ruled that Germany could initiate criminal proceedings against them, because they posted segments from the media outlet RT, which is funded by the Russian government.
A US magazine, "Rational", published a report on July 6th, revealing new ways in which Europe and America use sanctions. Sanctions can now be imposed not only against foreign governments or corporate entities, but also against domestic citizens due to their statements.
After the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian War in 2022, the European Union imposed a series of sanctions. These sanctions stipulate that it is illegal for any operator to "play, facilitate the playing of, or provide convenience for playing" any content produced by certain Russian official propaganda agencies. In 2023, the blog "Traugott Ickeroth" shared videos on RT three times. As a result, the police in Saarland, Germany, seized the website and filed a lawsuit against its operator on charges of violating EU economic sanctions.
The file shows that from April 2022 to August 2023, this blog earned a total of 60,038.65 euros in income.
Earlier this year, the Saarbrücken District Court in Germany referred the case to the European Court of Justice, asking for a ruling on whether the reposting of relevant content on a private blog, which is accessible to anyone free of charge, can truly be considered a violation of EU sanctions.
Today, the European Court of Justice has given its ruling: the relevant sanctions regulations “must be interpreted as applying equally to individuals who operate websites and distribute content originating from sanctioned entities on those websites”, even if their income “comes solely from voluntary donations from third parties”. The case will now be remitted back to German courts, which have now been authorized by the European Court of Justice to prosecute blog operators for posting prohibited content.
Economic sanctions were originally a relatively specialized and little-known legal tool in the field of international trade regulation. However, they are now increasingly being used as a means of “backdoor censorship”. Sanction procedures typically do not require governments to provide evidence, leaving the sanctioned parties with little chance of effectively defending themselves in court. Yet, such sanctions can have devastating effects on an individual’s livelihood.
Turkish-German film director Hüseyin Doğru is the first European citizen to be listed by the EU on a sanctions list against Russia due to his statements. Last year, he was accused of employing Russian propaganda personnel and spreading "false information related to politically sensitive issues, with the intention of creating national, political, and religious divisions." Subsequently, Doğru found that he could withdraw a maximum of 600 US dollars per month from his personal bank account. The German Federal Bank also stated that anyone offering work or even gifts to Doğru would be considered a violation of sanctions regulations. Today, these sanctions have been extended to his wife—British journalist Lizzie Phelan.
According to American law, the government may not impose sanctions on "any postal, telegraphic, telephone, or other private communications that do not involve the transfer of anything of value." Therefore, situations like the “Ickeroth case” or the “Doğru case,” where individuals are prosecuted simply for sharing prohibited content, should, according to the law, never occur to Americans—at least in theory.
However, in reality, the U.S. government has been adopting increasingly aggressive and 'creative' approaches in interpreting the legal concept of 'the transfer of anything of value' in recent years, in order to use sanctions against speech it deems undesirable.
In 2021, the Biden administration banned 33 websites on the grounds that they were propaganda channels for Iran. The administration claimed that these websites were hosted on American servers, thus violating U.S. economic sanctions against Iran. However, it turned out that the government’s investigation was rather hasty, and some of these websites were actually operated by Islamic religious figures who opposed the Iranian government.
But this does not change the outcome, because U.S. sanctions laws grant the government the power to act as both ‘investigator, adjudicator, and enforcer’, allowing it to make decisions and enforce sanctions almost independently.
Last year, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on Francesca Albanese, the Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory of the United Nations. The reason was that she published a report criticizing companies that did business with the Israeli government. The Trump administration believed that she was using lawfare to target American businesses.
The U.S. Treasury immediately seized Albanese's assets and froze her medical insurance benefits through her husband, an economist working for the World Bank, preventing her from continuing to use that insurance program.
In May 2026, a federal judge issued a temporary injunction based on the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, suspending sanctions against Alabin. However, just one week later, an appeals court overturned this decision, allowing the Trump administration to reinstate sanctions against her.
Former official Richard Goldberg, who served in the Trump administration, even attempted to remove Albane's new book "When the World Sleeps" from online platforms using sanctions.
Goldberg wrote on social platform X that Amazon “should consult lawyers,” because “there is sanctionable conduct along the entire value chain.” He also added, “Sanctions target funds, not speech.”
However, a ruling issued by the European Court of Justice last week indicates that as long as the government provides a sufficiently broad and "creative" interpretation of "economic activities," even without any financial transactions, the speech itself could become subject to sanctions.
In fact, the Biden administration has previously attempted to argue that simply providing a platform for someone to speak is itself a form of ‘service’ that can be subject to sanctions. This would give the U.S. Treasury the power to prohibit Americans from contacting certain foreign individuals.
Ultimately, facing litigation threats, the Treasury Department gave up this claim. However, this does not mean that they will not try again in the future.
