EU court backs criminal prosecution for sharing RT videos
RT | July 2, 2026
The EU’s top court has ruled that private individuals can face criminal prosecution for posting RT videos on public websites, widening the bloc’s crackdown on Russian media.
The Court of Justice of the European Union issued the ruling on Thursday in a case from Germany, where three people are being prosecuted for publishing RT DE videos on a freely accessible website.
The site did not charge readers and was financed only through voluntary donations. The CJEU, however, said that made no difference and ruled that all persons who are “directly or indirectly” responsible for making banned content available to the public can be treated as “operators” under EU sanctions rules.
The judges argued it was irrelevant if the individuals were running a business, how long the content was available, or how widely it was spread.
Under the German law cited in the ruling, violations of EU sanctions-based media bans can carry up to five years in prison.
The ruling effectively pushes the EU ban on RT beyond broadcasters, platforms or media companies, allowing for the criminal prosecution of any individuals accused of making RT content publicly available online.
The EU banned RT and Sputnik, among other Russian media outlets, after the Ukraine conflict escalated in 2022. Brussels said the sanctions would remain in place until the end of the Ukraine conflict and after Moscow ceases to conduct “disinformation and information manipulation actions against the EU.”
The measures were followed by platform blocks, app-store removals, banking restrictions, and personal sanctions against media figures and journalists accused of working with Russian outlets.
Germany had targeted RT even before the bloc-wide ban, with RT DE facing licensing pressure, platform bans, banking problems and regulatory action.
RT has vehemently condemned the restrictions and rejected the EU’s accusations, stressing that the bloc has consistently failed to point to a “a single example, a single grain of evidence” of false reporting.
Moscow has repeatedly condemned the restrictions as censorship and an information war against Russia, accusing EU governments of using the Ukraine conflict as a pretext to silence dissent, suppress Russian-language media, and intimidate journalists who challenge the mainstream Western narrative.
Lloyds Debanks The Canary, Withholds Its Funds
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | July 1, 2026
The Canary is a British left-wing independent news site, running since 2015, that calls itself “radical working-class media” and made its name attacking the political establishment and the mainstream press.
On June 30, after almost ten years of banking together, Lloyds Banking Group shut the site’s business account, held on to a large share of its money, and gave no reason. The Canary now says it has “barely any funds” and cannot pay all its staff.
According to the outlet, Lloyds is “withholding a substantial amount of our money” and “has not explained why it has taken this action.” The Canary went back to the bank more than once looking for an answer. “Despite multiple communications from us, the bank has not been forthcoming with its reasoning,” it wrote.
Its editors called the move an “outrage” and said they had been “unceremoniously dropped into financial instability with no notice or explanation from Lloyds.” No warning came, and the bank has named no date for handing the money back.
The arrangement is one-sided. Lloyds holds the money and sets the timeline, and it answers to nobody for either. A long-standing customer can lose access overnight and never learn what triggered it. That silence is a large problem with debanking. The bank never has to prove its case because the damage lands before the target can push back.
So who gets to decide a news organization is too risky to bank? Right now, Lloyds does, privately, behind language it won’t explain. Asked about the account, a spokesperson would say only “We do not comment on individual customer accounts.” That answers nothing.
The Canary suspects its politics played a part and says it will not pretend otherwise. “Whilst we do not currently know the reasons behind our debanking, we cannot afford to be naive about this,” the outlet wrote, adding that other politically active people have been cut off by their banks lately. Guessing at motive is what customers are reduced to when a bank withholds the real one.
The Free Speech Union, which has fought its own banking battles, backed the outlet fast. A spokesperson called debanking “one of the most pernicious forms of cancellation that an individual or organisation can face” and said the group is in contact with The Canary and “stand ready to help.”
Britain wrote rules meant to curb exactly this. Since April 2026, a bank must give 90 days’ notice and a written reason before closing an account. The protection reaches only accounts opened after the rules took effect, so a decade-long customer like The Canary falls outside it.
None of this began with The Canary. Coutts, part of NatWest, dropped Reform UK leader Nigel Farage in 2023 after tagging him a politically exposed person, a row that cost chief executive Alison Rose her job and pushed debanking onto the front pages. A bank decides a customer’s views have become a liability, shuts the account, and reaches for regulation instead of an explanation.
The Canary had just announced a daily print newspaper, 25,000 copies across England and Wales. An outlet building toward a bigger platform suddenly cannot make payroll, not through any court order or public process, but because one bank chose to hold its money and stay silent.
Palestine Action Proscription: We Fight Back
By Craig Murray | July 1, 2026
I publish below in full the Note we have submitted to Court today to re-establish the separate Scottish judicial review of the proscription of Palestine Action. Not only is the state doubling down on prosecution of pro-Palestine activists, a new National Security State Threats Bill is being fast tracked through parliament to extend the attack on free speech.
Under this bill receiving a benefit including “information” from a state entity designated as “hostile” by the Home Secretary will be a crime bringing up to 14 years in prison. So publishing casualty figures from Iranian sources, for example, will be terrorism. Publishing information about Ukrainian attacks on Russia will be illegal.
This is the relevant clause of the Bill. My emphasis:
17C Obtaining etc material benefits from a designated body
(1) A person commits an offence if—
(a) the person—
(i) obtains, accepts or retains a material benefit which is not an excluded benefit, or
(ii) obtains or accepts the provision of such a benefit to another person,
(b) the benefit is or was provided by or on behalf of a designated body, and
(c) the person knows, or having regard to other matters known to them ought reasonably to know, that the benefit is or was provided by or on behalf of a designated body.
(2) A person commits an offence if—
(a) the person agrees to accept—
(i) a material benefit which is not an excluded benefit, or
(ii) the provision of such a benefit to another person,
(b) the benefit is to be provided by or on behalf of a designated body, and
(c) the person knows, or having regard to other matters known to them ought reasonably to know, that the benefit is to be provided by or on behalf of a designated body.
(3) Material benefits may include financial benefits, anything which has the potential to result in a financial benefit, and information…
Please note there is specifically no public interest defence, no journalism defence and it is to be illegal to receive true information. It is not about the spread of disinformation, it is about the spread of information contrary to the British state narrative. Receiving information from a designated enemy of the UK is the offence, whether you publish it or not.
There in no modern precedent for this in peacetime. It is being forced through all its parliamentary stages – three readings, amendments and two Lords sittings – in a single day. I have repeatedly said that liberal democracy has collapsed. I do not need further proof.
Under the current legislation, yesterday prominent international lawyer Dan Kovalik was detained in Liverpool, his phone and laptop seized and he was questioned about his support for Palestine. Dan is a lawyer. He is entitled to lawyer/client confidentiality. His clients include the President of Colombia and other international figures. The UK is a rogue state.
The UK state is currently attempting to gaslight us with a concerted campaign of messaging about a few millions in aid to Gaza – much of which is concentrated on assisting ethnic cleansing by various medical and educational routes for people to leave Gaza. But with Labour Friends of Israel member Andy Burnham to take over as PM with former Chair of Labour Friends of Israel James Purnell as his Chief of Staff, support for the Genocide will continue unabated.
The absurd National Security (State Threats) Bill shows that attack on dissidents and free speech will continue at home too. The debanking by Lloyds of The Canary is another prong of the extraordinary destruction of civil liberty under New Labour.
So I am determined not to bow to the sisting of the Scottish judicial review and we have lodged a motion to “reclaim” or restart proceedings.
We have not yet reached the actual Scottish judicial review or had any chance to give the arguments we will use there. It is my intention that we will attack the proscription in the most fundamental way, making these points among others:
- There is an active obligation on states to do everything possible to stop a Genocide. By contrast, the UK has done everything in its power to facilitate Genocide, including protecting its supply chain.
- It is patently absurd to call a non violent direct action group a terrorist organisation
- The state should not be treated as neutral or infallible by the courts. The false narrative on Iraqi WMD, and the terrible deaths and destruction to which that narrative led, should be a warning the state can get it very wrong.
- As a former senior civil servant who was in the FCO during that period, I can testify to the pressures on civil servants and agencies to produce the evidence and policy recommendation that Ministers wish to hear
- The evidence base produced by JTAC to support the proscription recommendation was fundamentally untrue. The Filton jury proved that the Met Police and JTAC assertions of escalating violence, carrying weapons with intent to harm, did not happen as a matter of fact. The jury rejected the aggravated burglary and violent disorder.
- Only one Palestine Action activist has ever been convicted of an offence of violence, and there the jury specifically found no intent
- Lady Justice Carr in the Appeal Court judgement both relied on Sheriff McCormick’s sentencing remarks in the Thales case. But there were no convictions of violence in the Thales case. Sheriff McCormick misrepresented the evidence. Last week he the Sheriff Appeal Court in Scotland overturned his finding of anti-Israeli racism against Mick Napier of Scottish Palestine Solidarity Committee. The inaccurate and frothing remarks of one zionist Sheriff are not a basis for proscription.
- Lady Justice Carr ruled that the Home Secretary must be given “appropriate latitude” and a “wide margin of appreciation” in security cases. But the Home Secretary should not be idealised. They are a politician, and in this case a politician who is parti pris. Yvette Cooper is massively financed by the Zionist lobby. The courts should operate in the real world not in an idealised and unrealistic one.
Lady Carr’s judgement is entirely and directly predicated on the notion that in any conflict in law between the state and the citizen, special deference should always be given to the state as more noble and trustworthy. That reasoning is fundamentally flawed.
To get heard at all we have to roll back Lord Young’s extraordinary ruling that the English Court of Appeal judgement should be accepted as law in Scotland in the interests of “comity”. This overturns centuries of doctrine on the separate jurisdiction of Scotland going back to the Treaty of Union itself – though it does reflect what had in truth been the unchallenged though illegal practice of deference to England in such matters. … continue
NATO Prepares for War, Hitler-Style Prison Camps and Blockade of Russia
Sputnik – 30.06.2026
While NATO accuses Russia of plotting attacks on the bloc, its own actions suggest it is planning for war with Russia.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said NATO is building weapon to attack airfields deep inside Russia, with Ukraine as a testing ground. This spring, the NATO-led Joint Expeditionary Force held wargames to practise besieging and capturing Russia’s Kaliningrad region.
Questions have also been raised over the Namejs 2025 exercises in the Baltics.
Lithuanian media said the exercise played out setting up a temporary prison camp called “Selonia” in Latvia for “potential collaborators” — civilians suspected of political disloyalty.
- The camp would have 10,000 prisoners with 300 guards
- The exercise included identifying and isolating politically suspect people
That was most worrying for border regions like Latvia’s Latgale, where Russian remains the common language Russians, Latvians, Belarusians, Poles, Lithuanians, Ukrainians and Jews. Russian- and Belarusian-speaking communities in Lithuania could also be targeted, including parts of the Polish minority.
Echoing the Nazi occupation, the drills involved labeling parts of the population as potential enemies, compiling lists of “disloyal” citizens and preparing prison camps even before any conflict begins.
Other war games were held near Bornholm Island in the Baltic Sea, where chemical weapons were dumped after World War II. The aim was to control sea traffic — possibly planning for Baltic Sea blockade on Russian ports.
Moscow insists that it has no desire for war with NATO. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said there was no support for confrontation in Russia. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has accused the European Union of militarism on the pretext of a Russian menace.
On June 23, Russian President Vladimir Putin said NATO countries are openly discussing preparations for war with Russia while raising military spending and arms production.
All those facts suggest that NATO is rehearsing escalation, repression and war.
Journalists persecuted for exposing Ukrainian military’s crimes
By Lucas Leiroz | June 30, 2026
The Kiev regime has long been known for its authoritarian and dictatorial practices, constantly violating the most basic democratic principles and values, such as freedom of speech and the press. Journalists have been censored, arrested, sanctioned, and – in the most extreme cases – even murdered by the regime, revealing its deeply anti-democratic nature, despite Western propaganda’s insistence on portraying it as a “guardian of European values.”
In a recent incident involving violation of press freedom, Ukrainian military threatened to use force to “punish” journalists who exposed abuses committed by recruitment centers. An officer from Ukraine’s 425th Separate Assault Regiment “Skelia” (formerly “Skala”) recently threatened journalists who had revealed allegations of torture among the regiment’s recruits.
The journalists had previously reported various types of abuse within the unit, noting that new recruits were subjected to torture – with some even dying as a result of the physical mistreatment they endured. According to information shared by the journalists, at least 26 Skelia soldiers have died in the last six months. These deaths occurred at the unit’s training grounds, where recruits were forced to withstand severe torture.
The reported practices included “beatings, forced confinement, people being bound with tape or handcuffs, and cases of draftees with serious health issues being subject to grueling assault training.” It is important to note that forced mobilization policies in Ukraine are being implemented in a draconian manner; practically any man is mobilized once located by the authorities. Consequently, individuals with health issues or no prior military experience end up in these training centers, where they are subjected to rigorous physical tests for which they are neither physically nor mentally prepared.
The allegations caused an upheaval in Ukrainian society and generated intense public pressure on military authorities. To suppress the public outrage – particularly that of the victims’ families – the government decided to remove the unit’s commander, Lieutenant Colonel Yury Harkaviy, from his post. Investigations into the matter are ongoing, at least in theory. It remains unclear whether the commander and his team will face criminal charges for the torture and murder of the soldiers who died during training.
However, the authorities’ action against the unit’s commander does not appear to be truly effective. In practice, this seems to be merely a way to contain public pressure and mask what is actually happening: the persecution of the journalists involved in the report. An officer from the unit, Nikolay Kharlan, posted a video threatening the journalists, insulting them, and accusing them of “spreading misinformation for cash.” He claimed that no illegal acts occurred during the recruits’ training and harshly criticized the decision to remove his commander.
Kharlan criticized the government, accusing it of failing to fulfill its duty to protect Ukrainian military personnel. Furthermore, he stated that, given the government’s inaction, the troops themselves would take the initiative to protect their unit, thus suggesting that reprisals would be imposed on journalists. He also said he did not believe that 26 soldiers had died due to training abuses, describing the allegation as “Russian propaganda.”
“There should be criminal liability for this (…) [The government] removed itself from fulfilling its duties (…) In this case, the units of the armed forces will be able to defend themselves (…) Of the 26 people who died, 18 died in medical institutions – not at Skelia. This s**t is absolutely insane. Nine suicides? This information is false, and does not correspond to reality (…) [This is] Russian propaganda,” he said.
Although Kharlan spoke out against the government and threatened other Ukrainian citizens in his statement, no action has been taken by the authorities to punish him so far. This is due to a simple reason: the Ukrainian government lost control over its military long ago. Kiev is held hostage by military units formed by fanatical nationalists, with the formal authorities serving merely as the public face of an extremely violent and authoritarian dictatorial regime.
The decision to remove the commander will likely have only a temporary effect, intended to ease public pressure and prevent popular demonstrations in support of the victims’ families. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, the military are taking the initiative to go after journalists – who, unless they take appropriate protective measures or flee the country, will face critical danger to their lives. The government will also do nothing to protect these journalists or prevent the military from attacking them, given that the government itself is known for constantly violating press freedom and turning a blind eye to crimes committed by the military.
This case clearly reveals the true nature of the Ukrainian regime, which bears no resemblance to the European media narratives of “democracy and freedom.” In reality, the Ukrainian people live under one of the most brutal dictatorships in the world.
Lucas Leiroz, member of the BRICS Journalists Association, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, military expert.
You can follow Lucas on X (formerly Twitter) and Telegram.
Slovenia president seeks probe into Israeli interference in elections
Al Mayadeen | June 30, 2026
Slovenian President Nataša Pirc Musar has called for an international investigation into Israeli interference in Slovenia’s parliamentary elections, escalating a diplomatic row that has also exposed deep internal political divisions over the country’s stance on the Middle East, VINnews reported.
President Musar, who previously accused “Israel” of committing genocide in Gaza, appealed for the release of intelligence findings that reportedly point to a coordinated disinformation campaign targeting the then-ruling liberal party during the March 2026 elections.
According to Slovenian intelligence investigations, the operation involved an electronic disinformation network that leveraged deepfake technology and artificial intelligence to undermine the liberal camp. The probe allegedly attributed the campaign to a private Israeli intelligence firm operating in coordination with elements of Slovenia’s right-wing opposition.
Right-wing takes over Slovenia, strives to repair ties with the occupation
While the liberal party ultimately won the highest share of the vote, it failed to secure a governing coalition. That deadlock paved the way for right-wing leader Janez Janša, who successfully formed a government and took office as Prime Minister in May 2026.
In a sharp reversal of his predecessor’s foreign policy, Prime Minister Janša has announced plans to repair bilateral ties with “Israel”. In an exclusive interview for the Israeli daily Israel Hayom over the weekend, Janša confirmed his intention to relocate the Slovenian embassy from Tel Aviv to al-Quds, a move that aligns with the policies of several right-wing Israeli governments but has drawn international criticism in the past.
Janša also pledged to revoke the previous administration’s formal recognition of a Palestinian state, a decision he characterized as a violation of Slovenian domestic law.
EU’s New Creator Press Passes Come With a Loyalty Test
By Cam Wakefield | Reclaim The Net | June 29, 2026
The Council of the European Union has decided that from July, online creators can attend EU summits and ministerial meetings to make videos for YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. Fine. But the guidance to member states includes one odd instruction: don’t pick anyone who has “published views against EU values.”
What are EU values? Nobody will say. That’s the useful thing about a vague rule. You can point it wherever you like and never have to justify it. Posted something awkward about migration?
Wondered whether the euro was a good idea? Suggested the Commission gets things wrong? Possibly against EU values, possibly not, depending on who’s reading your back catalog that morning.
There’s no list of banned opinions or a review. An official just looks through your old posts and makes a call.
Now imagine them trying this on actual journalists. Guidance that said: nominate reporters to cover the summit, but exclude any who’ve expressed views against EU values. The newspapers would lose their minds, and Brussels knows it, which is exactly why it would never write that sentence down for the press corps. Journalists come with a long tradition of being a nuisance to power, and a fair number of lawyers to back it up.
Creators don’t have that armor. There’s no press freedom group ready to defend some bloke with 200,000 followers who makes explainer videos about the Council. So the EU runs an opinion test, files it under “eligibility criteria,” and assumes nobody will notice it’s the same thing it would never ask of a reporter.
They’re doing the same job, though. A creator explaining a Brussels decision to teenagers who’ll never buy a newspaper is doing journalism, whether or not anyone hands him a badge. Plenty of them reach more people than the wire reporters in the room. The only real difference is that one group has institutional defenders and the other has a phone.
Which leaves the EU with an awkward question. Is a free press one of these “values” or not? If it is, the rule contradicts itself, because the whole point of a free press is being able to publish views against you. You can’t vet your reporters for loyalty and call it press freedom in the same breath. And if a free press isn’t on the list, then they’ve told you what’s actually on it by what they left off. An institution that believed in free expression wouldn’t reach for an opinion test at all.
The clever part needs no rejection to work. The moment this guidance exists, anyone who wants a press pass starts editing himself. Skip the criticism about the latest policy. Drop the joke about von der Leyen. Keep it balanced, just in case. The Council doesn’t need to silence anyone when it can make people nervous enough to do it themselves. There’s also no paper trail, because nobody was ever formally told no.
The scheme arrives wrapped in good intentions, naturally. Brussels calls it widening engagement and bringing the institutions closer to the public. The other rules are reasonable enough: you need a real audience at home, a track record on politics and European affairs, no big sponsorship deals, no political office. Then the values clause does the job it was put there to do, sorting the approved from the unapproved. What you get isn’t a press pool so much as a fan club with lanyards.
The politicians who said anything were the ones already out of favor. Belgium’s Gerolf Annemans, a Vlaams Belang MEP, went for sarcasm: “I would go even further: nothing should be allowed to be questioned.” Lucas Hartong, formerly a Dutch MEP for the PVV, was drier, noting that “the EU and genuine democracy don’t exactly go hand in hand.” The Sweden Democrats said the whole thing showed “the EU elite is becoming increasingly desperate.”
Take the word “values” off the front and look at what’s underneath. The EU writes the definition, hands it to national governments, and uses it to decide which independent voices get to film its leaders. An institution that trusted its own legitimacy would open the doors and let the unflattering footage happen. Screening the cameras for loyalty first tells you how confident it really feels. And the creators most likely to pass? The ones who were never going to ask anything difficult anyway.
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The UN’s plan to levy taxes on global trade is a sinister power grab
If these precedents on emissions charges and compulsory offsets stand, the appetite of unelected institutions for fiscal power will grow
By Brenda Shaffer | The Telegraph | June 22, 2026
International energy and climate policies stand at the center of one of the most defining political issues of our time: the expanding power of unelected institutions such as the United Nations in the lives of people in democratic societies.
Two UN agencies – the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) – plan to tax global shipping and aviation for their greenhouse gas emissions. This would mark the first time an unelected institution has levied taxes on major sectors of global economic activity. The planned levies would expand the power and budgets of these agencies with no democratic accountability.
Regardless of one’s views on climate change, proponents of democracy should recognize the threat posed by taxation without representation and oppose this power grab by the UN.
If implemented, the UN agency levies will raise global shipping and aviation costs, adding to inflation worldwide. Shipping produces just around 2 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet a UN tax on it would add costs to virtually every traded good. Shipping carries more than 80 per cent of global trade, a share expected to grow. Civil aviation accounts for approximately 2.5 percent of global emissions. The planned carbon offset requirement would add further costs to international flights.
In October 2026, the IMO will take a final vote on launching its carbon tax. The ICAO’s requirement that airlines purchase carbon offsets for international flights comes into force in January 2027.
If implemented, the IMO scheme will rake in billions from shippers while doing little to lower greenhouse gas emissions: there is simply not enough zero-carbon or low-carbon fuel available that meets the IMO’s criteria. The IMO estimates the scheme will add between $11bn (£8.1bn) and $13bn (£9.6bn) to its budget.
The IMO taxation scheme would at minimum double shipping fuel costs. The current generation of low-carbon fuels – hydrogen, methanol, and ammonia – are not suitable for wide use in the shipping industry. These fuels are more flammable than those in use today, increasing risks for ships and crews. If adopted, insurance costs would soar, particularly following the first inevitable accident attributable to these fuels.
UK Speech Regulator’s Telegram Questions Point Toward Private Chats
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | June 21, 2026
Britain’s communications regulator is pressing Telegram to find ways of seeing what its users say to one another in private. Ofcom has begun questioning the messaging app about how it detects and prevents illegal incitement, following the conviction of a Ukrainian man for arson attacks on a car and properties connected to Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Roman Lavrynovych, 22, was reportedly drawn in through a public Telegram channel that advertised money to post and print leaflets, and that channel broke no laws. It offered legal work and told anyone interested to “contact in private messages.” The real offers, first for the poster work and later for the arson, reportedly moved into one-to-one chats away from public view.
A spokesperson for Ofcom said it had contacted the app “to seek further clarification” because the arsonist had been directed on Telegram by a handler linked to Russia.
The regulator frames this as a preliminary stage ahead of any formal investigation, though the questions point in one direction. If nothing illegal appeared in the open channel, the only place left to look is inside the private conversations between individual users.
That request carries a cost the regulator has not spelled out. Telegram cannot scan private messages for signs of incitement without reading private messages, all of them, belonging to everyone, not the handful that turn out to involve a crime.
The arson plot stayed hidden in personal chats precisely because that is where people expect to speak without an audience. Asking Telegram to surface that content means asking it to treat ordinary private conversation as something to be inspected by default.
It is not even settled what “private messages” covers here and the ambiguity raises the stakes. Telegram’s standard chats sit on its servers. Its secret chats use end-to-end encryption that the company itself cannot read, but only when turned on, and the feature is not turned on by default.
Court reporting has not made clear which kind carried the arson offers. Should Ofcom expect detection inside encrypted chats, it is effectively asking Telegram to build a route around its own encryption, most likely by scanning messages on the user’s device before they are sealed. That hollows out the protection for the people who relied on it. A message read before it is encrypted was never really encrypted.
A single conviction has become the occasion to ask a platform how it inspects private speech in general and the answer Ofcom seems to want is closer inspection.
The push runs in one direction across the Online Safety Act, through age checks, hash-matching against databases of banned images, automated tools to flag grooming and self-harm content, and now questions about catching incitement inside private chats.
Detection keeps moving inward, from public posts toward the conversations people assumed only their recipient would see. Real harms justify the steps one at a time and the cumulative effect normalizes a new baseline, where a messaging app is expected to read along and act as an extension of the regulator’s reach. The Act backs that expectation with fines of up to £18 million ($24M) or a tenth of global revenue, which is leverage enough to make most companies listen.
Israel’s censor silenced 5,700 reports in 2025
Israeli forces detain a photojournalist in Hebron, West Bank on October 3, 2024. [Wisam Hashlamoun – Anadolu Agency]
MEMO | June 18, 2026
Israel’s military censor blocked or altered more than 5,700 news reports in 2025, an average of 15 items per day, making it the second-highest year for media censorship in Israel since records began 15 years ago, according to new data published by +972 Magazine.
The figures, obtained through a freedom of information request submitted by +972 and the Movement for Freedom of Information, show that the censor demanded redactions in 4,974 news items in 2025, while completely barring 753 further items from publication. Both totals remain far above the previous annual average of around 2,300 redactions and 320 full bans recorded between 2011 and 2023. The year 2024, the height of Israel’s genocide on Gaza, still holds the record for the highest number of interventions.
The censor, a unit embedded within Israel’s Military Intelligence Directorate, received 17,176 article submissions from media outlets in 2025, compared to a pre-2024 annual average of just under 12,000. Israeli law requires media organisations to submit material touching on “security” issues for censor approval before publication, under emergency regulations enacted at the time of Israel’s founding that remain in force today.
According to +972, censorship was most intensive during Israel’s war with Iran. Police, municipal inspectors, and at times civilians enforced severe restrictions on reporting the locations of Iranian missile strikes on Israeli cities, with Arab and foreign journalists disproportionately subjected to obstruction in the field. Television studios regularly hosted a representative of the censorship authority to monitor live broadcasts in real time.
Media outlets are legally barred from informing their audiences that the censor interfered in a published article. The censor is also authorised to intervene retroactively, ordering the removal of articles published without prior approval as it did last year when it demanded the deletion of a column in Haaretz that disclosed the locations of Iranian missile strikes in Tel Aviv.
The censor holds sweeping powers of enforcement, including the authority to indict journalists and to fine, suspend, shut down, or file criminal charges against media organisations that fail to comply with its orders.
The data raises questions about the political direction of the censorship apparatus. The two men who led the censor over the past two years — Kobi Mandelblit, who served as chief censor until April 2025, and Netanel Kula, who replaced him — are both relatives of senior legal figures from Israel’s religious-Zionist movement.
Three months after Kula assumed the role, reports emerged that he had suppressed coverage of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s son purchasing an undisclosed property abroad. The story eventually reached the public through other channels.
The data also points to a striking double standard in enforcement. The far-right Channel 14, a broadcaster aligned with Israel’s ultranationalist camp, repeatedly published sensitive combat plans and military intelligence tools that security officials determined had caused “actual harm” to national security. Despite this, the channel was not penalised on any occasion.
“It is particularly important during times of emergency to receive reliable information about changes regarding the censor’s activities,” said Or Sadan, an attorney from the Movement for Freedom of Information. “Although there has been a slight decrease from last year, it is hard not to notice the alarming rise in the number of news reports being hidden from the public. Democracy is based on the transfer of information from the government to the public, and any infringement upon this is a direct infringement upon democracy.”
+972 notes that military censorship, while severe, is not the most acute form of press freedom violation committed by the Israeli military. Since 7 October 2023, more than 250 journalists have been killed across Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, and Iran — some of them in strikes that investigators have concluded were direct and deliberate, including so-called “double-tap” attacks targeting rescue workers who arrived at the scene of a first strike.
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From the Archives
A short history of British torture
ICC | December 2005
When the House of Commons was debating how much to increase the time limit for detention without trial the question of torture came up. Officially this was limited to the nice considerations of whether it was all right to send people to places where torture is used and whether Britain can use information collected by the use of torture in other countries. This discussion gave an impression of democratic Britain as the home of civilised behaviour where the very idea of torture is repugnant to our legislators – unlike, say, the US with its secret CIA jails… In reality, the British state has a long history of using and developing a whole range of torture techniques. … continue
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- Sanctions Target Iran’s Government, But Kill Hospitalized 23-Year-Old Woman
- An alternative view on the book “Israel’s Lobby: America in the Grip of a Foreign Power”
- Ed Sheeran’s band Beoga, other opening acts quit tour after Macklemore was dropped over his pro-Palestinian comments
- The assassination attempt on President Trump in Butler and the various Israeli connections to it
- “We Want That the Whole Land Be Jewish”
- BREAKING: Building collapse in Gaza kills at least 20 as they sleep – Daily Update
- ‘School is Life’: 1.5 Million Palestinian Children Face Fourth Year of Shattered Education
- Pentagon admits Iran war caused ammunition shortages, cost US $33.4bn
- 37 Palestinian journalists held in Israeli jails, rights group says
- No Tricks Zone
- Economic Masterminds: German Socialists Suggest Taxing Productivity Gains Stemming From Using AI
- The South China Sea Has Not Been Cooperating With The Climate Change Narrative
- Energy Crisis: Germany Enters Heating Season With Historically Low Gas Reserve Fill Levels
- New Study: The Antarctic Ice Sheet Gained Mass From 2020-2024 Due To Staggering Snow And Ice Accumulation
- Study: Ocean Heating Rates From Thousands Of Years Ago ‘Dwarf’ Modern Ocean Heating Rates
- Climate Extremists Target, Attack Large-Scale Power Grid Infrastructure In Germany!
- New Study: Antarctic Ice Melt Has Contributed Less Than 1 Centimeter To Sea Level Rise In The Last 30 Years
- Fear Of Debate: Alarmist German Climate Scientist Calls On Mainstream Media To Discredit Skeptic Voices
- End-Of-August Arctic Sea Ice Extent Hasn’t Fallen In 20 Years, Official Data Show!
- News-Making Nepal Region Has Had As-Warm Or Warmer Periods Than The 2000s In The 1600s, 1700s, 1800s
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