PayPal Blocks Anti-War Outlet From Receiving Funds Over A Single Donation From An Iranian-Australian.

PayPal Blocked Donations From Going To The Grayzone Over A Donation For An Iranian-Australian.

PayPal has a long history of blocking funds from going to the few news outlets that actually oppose war and debunk the propaganda used to justify it.

During the outbreak of the Ukraine Proxy war, PayPal blocked funds from going to Consortium News and MintPress News, two of the only news outlets that were opposing an escalation of the war.

As journalist Branko Marcetic noted at the time, “Faceless tech bureaucrats have unilaterally cut two serious independent media outlets off from a vital source of funding with no prior warning, no ability to appeal, and no explanation besides a vague reference to ‘potential risk,’ all at a time when critical debate about the most dangerous conflict in most Americans’ lifetimes is being stifled in a climate of fear and repression.”

At the same time, PayPal also shut down accounts of individuals who were critical of the proxy war in Ukraine, including the journalist Alan MacLeod and the activist Caleb T. Maupin.

Previously, in 2010, PayPal blocked funds from going to WikiLeaks after “the State Department sent a letter” pressuring PayPal to block WikiLeaks, while the outlet was publishing evidence of U.S. war crimes in Iraq.

Most recently, last October, PayPal blocked the account of the Grayzone-another anti-war and anti-Zionist outlet founded by journalist Max Blumenthal- and prevented the outlet “from accessing several thousands of dollars” it had already received.

The ban, as Blumenthal recently revealed, was over two donations totalling 40 dollars from an Australian citizen named Nasrollah Abassi.

PayPal was seemingly implying that Nasrollah Abassi had some sort of Iranian government connection due to him being from Iran, but Blumenthal tracked him down and interviewed him and found this was far from the case.

Nasrollah Abassi, in reality, is an Iranian leftist who left the country due to political persecution of the left, telling Blumenthal, “I was a leftist before I left the country … We never did anything wrong to the government, but we were persecuted”.

Despite his many issues with the Iranian government, Abassi opposes an American/Israeli regime change war on Iran, saying, “if the regime fall, then I think we will become several countries, just like the Balkans” adding that he supported the Grayzone because “you people haven’t sold your soul to the Devil” referring to the outlet’s anti war journalism.

Nasrollah Abassi- the user who was flagged by PayPal to justify blocking the Grayzone- in reality is an Australian citizen from Iran who is critical of the Iranian government, but does not want to see his native country Balkanised and destroyed by a U.S./Israeli regime change war.

While Nasrollah Abassi has no Iranian government connections, he is apparently a target of the Australian security state.

He told Max Blumenthal, that his wife “went to one of these Hosseineh (a Shia Islamic congregation)” and when returning, told him, “today, police stopped me and told me, ‘What are you doing here, What are people doing here in the Hosseineh’”, adding that she told him, “police took my photo when I was coming out of Hosseineh”.

He added, “This is just my wife. She had nothing to do with anything. No politics, she’s just a normal lady”.

Previously, Israel pressured Australian intelligence to baselessly blame anti-semitic incidents on Iran, and more recently falsely blamed the Bondi Beach terrorist attack- which was committed by ISIS sympathisers- on Iran.

Australian writer Caitlin Johnston has documented how the Australian Israel lobby since the attack has been pressuring for more censorship of Israel critical speech, writing, “During a recent public video conference with the American Jewish Committee on the topic of the Bondi Beach shooting, the Executive Manager of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) explicitly says he wants pro-Palestine protests to be banned by the Australian government, and that addressing the problem of antisemitic hate speech in Australia necessarily means stopping opposition to Israel’s actions.”

Johnston also documented that:

Australia’s Labour government has successfully passed a “hate speech” bill that’s plainly aimed, at least in part, at suppressing pro-Palestine organisations as “hate groups”.

Free speech advocates are sounding the alarm about the new laws, saying their extremely vague wording, lack of procedural fairness and low thresholds for implementation mean groups can now be banned if they make people feel unsafe or upset without ever actually posing any physical harm to anyone.

For me the most illuminating insight into what these laws are actually designed to do came up in an ABC interview with Attorney-General Michelle Rowland on Tuesday. Over and over again throughout the interview Rowland was asked by ABC’s David Speers to clarify whether the new laws could see activist groups banned for criticizing Israel and opposing its genocidal atrocities in a way that causes Jewish Australians to feel upset feelings, and she refused to rule out the possibility every single time.

With Israel pressuring Australia to baselessly blame Iran and pro-Palestinian activists for anti-semetic incidents in Australia, it would come as no surprise if the Australian security state’s harassment and documentation of Nasrollah Abassi and his wife led to the Australian government flagging his PayPal account, leading to the Grayzone ban.

Max Blumenthal noted, “We need to ask why PayPal’s compliance team is so focused on two small donations from a retired Iranian immigrant in Australia, whose wife was facing harassment from local authorities for simply attending Mosque services”.

What is undeniable is that PayPal is attempting to shut down the revenue stream of the few news outlets that challenge the pro-war and Zionist narratives infesting every other news outlet, from Wikileaks, to Mintpress and Consortium News, to the Grayzone.

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