JX Fund – European Fund for Journalism in Exile

The PEN International Case List’s primary role is to inform its membership and others engaged in advocacy for free expression and serves to enable PEN Centres to identify where their focus could be. It is an indication of where the problems lie in any given year, enabling reflection on patterns and trends that can serve to inform future actions.

Since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, Afghan women have been pushed out of schools, workplaces, and public life with a speed that shocked the world. In a matter of days, freedoms that had taken years to build disappeared. Yet in those early weeks, before fear could fully take hold, some women stepped outside and raised their voices.

Thomas Erdbrink’s documentary series Onze man bij de vijand about Russia primarily features Russians who support president Putin and the war in Ukraine, says journalist Pavel Kanygin, who fled his country and now lives in Amsterdam. That’s certainly not the whole story, he emphasizes in this op-ed.

Last year, governments all over the world assassinated, assaulted, kidnapped, threatened, and harassed critics beyond their borders. Freedom House recorded 126 new incidents of physical, direct transnational repression during the year, bringing the total number of cases in our database, which spans 2014 to 2025, to 1,375.

The Global Nonprofits Guide aims to support nonprofit organizations to strengthen operations, financial access and relocation by providing an easily accessible and user-friendly platform on nonprofit laws. The support provided through the Guide is linked with potential pro bono support by lawyers as well as resource materials to help organizations gain deeper understanding of the legal aspects covered in the Guide.

What does it take to address the funding needs of public interest media with locally anchored solutions? Public interest media remains an essential pillar of democratic societies. Ensuring its future will require funding systems that are more diverse, more resilient, and more locally rooted than before. This report provides valuable insights into what it takes to begin building those systems.

Operating largely from exile after being blocked in Belarus and disrupted by the war in Ukraine, Tribuna.com has rebuilt itself as a global, remote sports media platform. The piece shows how it adapted to displacement and political pressure by combining journalism, technology, and fan communities into a resilient, product-driven media model.

Exiled Afghan journalists are keeping critical reporting alive through Amu TV and its flagship show Jan-e-Gap, broadcasting from studios in the U.S., Canada, France, and Turkey. Host Sadaf Rahimi and co-founders Lotfullah Najafizada and Sami Mahdi connect millions of Afghan viewers to open debate, exposing abuses and giving a voice to those silenced under the Taliban.

Reporters Without Borders investigates how the Chinese state’s global media strategy aims to extend control over international information and narratives, from expanding state broadcasters abroad to influencing foreign media and exporting censorship models. The report warns this push could threaten independent journalism and press freedom worldwide.

Nastassia Rouda, director of Belarusian outlet Nasha Niva, shares how her team continues reporting from exile in Vilnius. Using creative content, humor, and social media, they stay relevant inside Belarus despite political repression and economic hardships, keeping audiences engaged and preserving free media for Belarusians across generations.

This practical guide from LatAm Journalism Review outlines how independent media can prepare stronger applications for programs, grants and funds to support sustainability in Latin America. It highlights why applying helps clarify goals, organize teams and refine business strategies, and stresses diversifying income beyond grants for long‑term viability.

Exiled media outlets often face fundraising systems built for stable, in-country organizations. The Global Forum for Media Development outlines practical adjustments – from framing exile in proposals to budgeting for instability – to help sustain journalism across borders under challenging conditions.

Larysa Shchyrakova from Homiel worked at Belsat almost from the very beginning, since 2008. The journalist did not have a quiet life even before 2020, but after the protests and mass repressions began, life turned into a waiting game — when will they come for her? Larysa says that when they really came, she exhaled, because she could no longer be afraid.

Alexander Udikov’s Medium blog offers personal insights into life as a Russian journalist forced into exile after persecution for anti‑war articles. Since receiving political asylum in France in 2024, Udikov chronicles daily life, bureaucratic hurdles, creative workarounds and the ongoing challenge of staying true to independent journalism beyond Russia’s censorship.

This report introduces the previously unknown Spyware ResidentBat used by the Belarussian secret service KGB. It targets Android phones and is installed through physical device access. Broad application permissions and an accessibility service allow the app access to a wide range of data, spanning phone calls, SMS, encrypted messenger chats and files on the phone.

This toolkit builds on the Pulitzer Center’s AI Spotlight Series, an initiative designed to expand the field of AI accountability reporting by equipping journalists worldwide with the skills and knowledge necessary to cover AI critically and responsibly. In an effort to make the AI Spotlight Series resources even more accessible, they are open-sourcing the course modules, slide decks, and videos produced by our instructors who are some of the world’s leading tech reporters and editors.

The following list brings together five tools that media outlets and fact-checking organizations use for tasks ranging from tracking disinformation and analyzing its dissemination patterns, to recovering deleted content and analyzing audiovisual material.

This report by the Centre for Eastern Studies examines the Kremlin’s expanding control over Russia’s digital space and its impact on independent information. It explores how censorship, surveillance and platform restrictions have pushed many independent media outlets into exile – while these outlets develop new strategies to continue reaching audiences inside Russia.