JX Fund – European Fund for Journalism in Exile

“A blogger and journalist from Russia. Left the country due to persecution for anti-war articles. Received political asylum in France. I write about my new life.”

Meydan TV is one of the few independent media organisations broadcasting in Azerbaijan. With the newsroom in exile in Berlin, the team focuses on bringing the country’s corruption and sensitive human rights issues to light. Meydan’s editor-in-chief takes you through the newsroom’s darkest days, and how the EU failed to protect its interests.

Six new Berliners from Belarus, Afghanistan, Iran, Ukraine, Sudan, and Syria open up about their journeys of escape, loss, and starting over. In the photo series Berlin Still Lifes, photographer Dzmitry Brushko captures the objects and dishes that connect them to their past and present. No faces are shown — instead, everyday items tell deeply personal stories of memory, identity, and belonging.

In an interview with Roman Gressier, editor of El Faro’s English edition, Lucy Nash explores how the Salvadoran newsroom’s investigations – including explosive gang-leader testimony – shook President Bukele’s narrative, triggered political backlash, and forced dozens of journalists into exile.

In a personal spotlight for El Faro, journalists Óscar and Carlos Martínez recount their sudden “preventive departures” following explosive reporting on Bukele’s gang ties. Planned as brief, cautious trips, these exits soon turned into forced exile. Read their emotional first-hand account of a reorganized life, halfway across the world.

Is reporting possible while living under persecution? When you don’t know from where you’ll be attacked, or if you will be discredited, threatened, intimidated, or forced into exile? Where the choices are sometimes as stark as choosing jail, silence, or exile?

For many Nicaraguans fleeing the Ortega-Murillo regime, objects carried into exile hold deep emotional value—links to the past and symbols of hope for return. This is the story of an exiled journalist and his collection of keys. He calls himself *Castro, in homage to an influential high school teacher in Managua who suggested he study journalism.

Dissidents who have fled Alexander Lukashenko’s rule in Belarus have spoken of threats being made against them and their relatives at home. Hundreds of thousands of Belarusians are estimated to have left their country since the brutal crackdown on widespread opposition protests in 2020, after Lukashenko, 70, claimed victory in presidential elections that were widely condemned as rigged.

Clavel Rangel is a journalist forcibly displaced due to her reporting in Venezuela. She didn’t go into exile with a safety net, a secured job, or a detailed plan. She left with her name, her credibility, and her conviction. As she tells it, her survival has been multifaceted, fragmented, and deeply creative.

Despite being forced into exile in 2018, dissident blogger Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh continues to write about social justice and human rights issues concerning Vietnam. More popularly known as Me Nam or “Mother Mushroom,” she gained recognition for her posts on environmental pollution and police abuse.

Like much of Belarus’s independent media sector, Hrodna.life is struggling for sustainability in exile. Forced to relocate to the EU, the team lost not only the advertising market but also direct contact with the audience it serves. They saved themselves from prison but lost the opportunity to breathe the same air as their readers – and this is crucial for local media like theirs.

In the article, journalist Nikita Sologub shares how independent media like Mediazona continue reporting in Russia despite mounting repression. Founded to expose abuses in the Russian prison system, Mediazona has operated for over a decade, even as press freedom has deteriorated and the state increasingly targets dissenting voices.

On World Press Freedom Day, Global Voices turns their attention to the independent outlets operating in exile due to censorship, harassment, or direct threats. One such voice is Muwatin, a London-based independent media outlet reporting on issues from the Arabian Gulf, founded by the editor and researcher Mohammed Al-Fazari.

Mizzima News, an independent media outlet, has continued to report on Myanmar’s struggle for democracy despite the military coup in 2021. After the coup, Mizzima quickly adapted by relocating its operations to remote regions and using satellite broadcasting to bypass junta censorship.

In her article, Mahtab Qolizadeh reflects on the challenges she faces as an exiled Iranian journalist in Berlin. After fleeing Iran to escape imprisonment and torture, she hoped to find freedom and purpose in writing, but instead feels lost and disconnected in her new life. Struggling with isolation and trauma, Qolizadeh grapples with the sense that her freedom lacks meaning, and she is haunted by memories of her imprisonment.

At the 2025 International Journalism Festival in Perugia, Nick Slater spoke with Oleg Grigorenko, Editor-in-Chief of exiled Russian outlet 7×7 Horizontal Media, about how they’re using AI to fight news fatigue and reach Russian audiences with vital, independent reporting.

In this special World Press Freedom Day episode of Fellowship Takeaways, a podcast by the Reuters Institute, two exiled journalists speak on covering Russia and Syria from afar. They discuss the challenges of building trust, maintaining sources’ anonymity, the emotional toll of their work and what newsrooms can do better to support journalists in exile.

Kurdish Journalism Day honors 127 years since the first Kurdish newspaper, marking a legacy of resistance and truth-telling in the face of censorship, exile, and violence. Exiled and local journalists across the Middle East continue the struggle for press freedom, using journalism as both activism and cultural preservation.