JX Fund – European Fund for Journalism in Exile

RSF brought together EU institutions and exiled journalists to discuss countering Kremlin propaganda through the Svoboda satellite package. The initiative reaches millions of households in Russia and Belarus, helping exiled outlets bypass internet censorship and reconnect with audiences at home. The event also highlighted the need for continued support for exiled media.

After five years in exile, Carlos Chamorro reflects on how Confidencial continues reporting on Nicaragua from abroad. He outlines the challenges of protecting sources and collaborators, verifying information without journalists on the ground, reaching audiences inside Nicaragua despite censorship, and sustaining a newsroom across borders.

Independent Russian media in exile play a crucial role in providing audiences inside Russia with alternative information about the war and its consequences. CEPA argues that Western governments should treat these outlets as a strategic capability, supporting their access to audiences, credibility and digital infrastructure rather than undermining their efforts to challenge the Kremlin’s monopoly over information.

As journalists remain in exile for longer periods, technology is reshaping how they report, reach audiences and sustain their work across borders — while creating new vulnerabilities through surveillance, censorship and cyberattacks. At ISOJ 2026, JX Fund joined experts from IAPA, CPJ and RSF to discuss these opportunities and risks for exiled media.

A new JX Fund Country Profile examines Iran’s growing exile media sector, documenting 16 independent outlets operating abroad and reaching audiences largely inside the country. The Fix highlights how these outlets navigate censorship, internet restrictions, fragmented teams and the risks of reporting remotely, while also facing threats from Iran beyond its borders.

Ten rights groups, led by RSF, are pressing Guatemalan authorities to turn President Arévalo’s acknowledged “historic debt” to exiled journalists into concrete guarantees—covering safe return, reviewed prosecutions, stronger protections, and non-recurrence—after a report documented at least 16 forced into exile over the past decade.

Far from home, exiled newsrooms face a daily balancing act. Amu TV and Kashmir Times editors describe how they verify facts without being on the ground, protect sources under surveillance and authoritarian threat, and guard hard-won credibility—choosing to delay stories, embrace anonymity, and admit mistakes rather than risk lives or trust.

Natalia Belikova of Press Club Belarus hasn’t returned home since 2019 — not even for her father’s funeral. Since Lukashenko’s 2020 crackdown, over 1,000 journalists fled into exile, facing funding gaps, cyberattacks, and fading ties to audiences back home. She discusses censorship workarounds, ongoing arrests, and what keeps Belarusian exile media going.

Afro-Cuban journalist Abraham Jiménez Enoa received the Percy Qoboza Award in Atlanta, defying the Havana regime that forced him into exile in 2021. Now living in Barcelona, separated from family, he linked press freedom to Black struggle, declaring “you cannot silence us” and dedicating the honor to colleagues still resisting inside Cuba.

Turkish journalist Doğan Ertuğrul has lived in exile in Vienna since 2016, running the critical outlet Kronos News. In July 2026, Turkey froze his assets over alleged terror links, hitting his pension too. With elections looming in 2028, Ertuğrul sees deliberate intimidation. RSF demands international solidarity for press freedom in Türkiye.

At Belarus’s New Belarus conference, Media IQ’s Pavliuk Bykouski presented Press Club Belarus data (2025–26) on exiled independent media: 133 accounts across 13 newsrooms, views growing from 280M to 448M, and 31.9% of Belarusians reporting contact with independent media. The article examines what the data shows — and where it falls short.

Journalists usually report the news, not live it. At NEMO’s latest Knowledge Exchange Session, representatives from independent exiled media organizations turned that around, reflecting on their own experience of forced relocation: rebuilding infrastructure, securing digital access, and starting over in unfamiliar countries.

In this podcast episode from taz Panter Stiftung’s “Freie Rede” series, jurist and writer Maxim Znak, journalist and photographer Sergei Balai, and journalist Alena discuss a law forcing exiled Belarusians to return home to renew passports—risking arrest if they do, or losing valid ID if they don’t—and its impact on those who fled after the 2020 protests.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 challenged much of the common Western understanding of Russia. How can the world better understand Russia? What are the steps forward for Western policy? The Eurasia Center’s “Russia Tomorrow” series seeks to reevaluate conceptions of Russia today and better prepare for its future tomorrow.

Myanmar Satirical Journalism sits at the center of one of the most dramatic press-freedom reversals documented anywhere on this site: a media landscape that had genuinely opened during the 2011 to 2021 reform period collapsed back into severe restriction within weeks of the February 2021 military coup.

Since Russians invasian in 2022 many journalists emigrated to keep independently reporting about the war to Russians, many outlets have launched English-language versions of their publications in order to find new revenue streams to support their work, as the Russian authorities have introduced increasingly restrictive legal measures targeting support for independent media.

Strong institutions make the Baltic states global leaders in media freedom, while independent local media across the Eastern Partnership face unstable, crisis-driven funding and constrained decision-making power. This article presents a report on media development, looking at three interconnected themes: Funding, local ownership, and adaptation.

When an autocracy persecutes, scilences, intimidates its critics outside the country, it is referred to as transnational repression. The topic has gained prominance in recent years, as dissidents from russia and belarus have increasingly sought refuge in the EU. But regimes suppress not only activities inside their own borders, but also try to pressure ones in exile.