By John Friend
Alina Lipp, a German-born independent journalist covering the war in Ukraine, has become a target of the German government due to her critical coverage of the war, she recently revealed in a brief commentary video posted on social media.
1/2 The #German government is fighting against freedom of speech. I am a free journalist who covers the special operation in #Ukraine️. They are going to sentence me now to 3 YEARS IN PRISON for telling the truth.
One of our #German colleagues needs all our support! pic.twitter.com/WEC5E1d3o9
— Juan Sinmiedo (@Youblacksoul) June 15, 2022
Lipp has been living in Donetsk in the Donbass region of Ukraine for close to six months. The Donbass region is the contested territory in eastern Ukraine comprising the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics that wish to gain autonomy or outright independence from the Ukrainian national government based in Kiev following the Western-backed and sponsored Maidan coup in 2014. Since then, an on-going civil war has taken place, pitting forces loyal to the regime in Kiev against pro-Russian separatists and militias loyal to the Donbass People’s Republics.
Lipp notes that she has become a target of German authorities for her reporting on the special military operation launched by Russia in late February, which she claims has been welcomed and supported by many in the Donbass region. She has also claimed that the Ukrainian regime’s war against the people of the Donbass, which has resulted in thousands of deaths since 2014 and the widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure and residential housing, amounts to a genocide.
In the video above, Lipp presents a letter she received from German authorities explaining that a criminal case against her has been opened relating directly to her journalistic activities, which merely amount to critical reporting on the war. Lipp has claimed that German authorities have censored her reports from the region that she posted on the internet, and that her and her father’s bank accounts have been shut down and blocked.
She has been “living here for half a year now, telling Germans what is going on in the Donbass region and in Ukraine,” Lipp explained in the video report. “And for that, the German authorities now started to persecute me.”
According to Lipp, “the support of the special operation of Russia in Ukraine is a criminal act for which you can get three years in prison” in Germany.
After highlighting the letter she received, she noted that German authorities would not allow for an open hearing of the “crimes” she has allegedly committed.
“What is interesting in the end of their letter, they are writing that they are not going to invite me to a hearing, because this would disturb the investigations,” Lipp noted. “So they are persecuting me, but don’t want to hear me out.”
She also notes that there is a “Z” on one of the documents from the German government, a symbol that has come to be associated with Russia’s special military operation against Ukraine and one that is forbidden in Germany.
Lipp is affiliated with the Friends of Crimea International Association, as she explains in the video below.
Independent journalists and political commentators have become a major target of Western governments and the Zelensky regime, particularly since the Russian invasion began.
“What is happening to me now can now happen to all independent journalists and bloggers,” Lipp concluded. She hopes to collaborate with other independent journalists to raise awareness of the state-sponsored persecution of independent journalists and the censorship in the West.
