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In 2025, Azerbaijani authorities imposed restrictions on international organizations and foreign media, suspending some UN-affiliated entities and revoking media accreditations. While framed as protecting national interests and sovereignty, observers argue these measures further undermine transparency and accountability.
A new survey by the Belarusian Association of Journalists finds that media workers released from prosecution face long‑term challenges even after gaining freedom. Beyond basic needs like housing, medical care and legal paperwork, many seek professional reintegration – from freelance work to training – as they rebuild careers amid exile and uncertainty.
A new GFMD report maps 326 media assistance and journalism support programmes across Sub‑Saharan Africa, revealing uneven funding flows, gaps in journalist safety and digital rights support, and heavy focus on short‑term grants. Despite expanding commercial media markets, donor support remains marginal and misaligned with structural challenges facing independent media.
This The Economist briefing shows how democratic governments are increasingly adopting autocratic‑style tactics to restrict journalism without overt censorship – from legal and economic pressures to demonizing critical media. It highlights a troubling global decline in press freedom as democracies erode protections that once safeguarded independent reporting.
OVD‑Info’s 2025 overview documents political repression across Russia, including arrests, censorship, and restrictions targeting journalists, activists, and independent voices. While most incidents occur inside the country, the report illustrates how sustained pressure, surveillance, and legal crackdowns are forcing many media practitioners into exile, highlighting the growing risks for free reporting.
A trilingual ebook maps the state of journalism across 11 Latin American countries, based on surveys with more than 4,000 reporters. It documents safety threats, economic precarity, political pressure and gender disparities, while showing journalists’ professional autonomy and resilience in defending democratic reporting amid hostile environments.
A new special report by the Committee to Protect Journalists shows that around the world, governments continue to imprison journalists at unprecedented levels in 2025, with many facing brutal detention conditions. The sustained threat of incarceration has contributed to rising numbers of journalists fleeing into exile to continue their work safely.
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.
Journalist and propaganda expert Pavlyuk Bykovsky analyzes the role propaganda plays in the Lukashenko regime and how it has evolved since the mass protests of 2020. Bykovsky’s contribution not only helps to understand the specific principles of the Lukashenko dictatorship, but also sheds light on the general mechanisms of propaganda and disinformation.
Amid rising global repression and shrinking donor support, understanding how exile media remain viable, independent, and impactful is increasingly urgent. The study identifies key factors that enable media organizations to adapt, survive, and continue serving their communities from abroad. It also offers practical recommendations for exile media, media development actors, donors, and policymakers.
This research explores the gender and ethnicity-based challenges faced by Kurdish female journalists, focusing on their professional experiences in Turkey and in exile.
Galina Timchenko and Ivan Kolpakov from the exile outlet Meduza describe their struggle to keep the independent media platform alive amid heavy internet blocks in Russia and growing financial pressure. Timchenko calls it a “war of attrition” waged by the Kremlin against free media.
Swissinfo asked Olga Sadovskaya, vice-chair of rights group The Crew Against TortureExternal link and vice-president of the World Organization Against TortureExternal link, to demonstrate how Russia’s digital Iron Curtain works with and without a VPN. [Spoiler: Swissinfo’s website doesn’t load in the country without one.]
Independent media can be destroyed, journalists can be imprisoned — but they cannot be forced into silence. The starting point of the newest Belarusian history was August 9, 2020 — the day of voting in a presidential election that never truly happened. That day marked the beginning of a total purge of Belarus’s democratic society.
EUvsDisinfo has published an article detailing how Lukashenka’s regime continues its harsh retaliation against Belarusians five years after the 2020 protests. The piece highlights ongoing arrests, torture, and exile as part of the government’s efforts to suppress dissent and maintain control.
Last summer, Russian authorities began throttling YouTube playback speeds, rendering the popular video platform practically unusable. This has pushed many Russians to change their media consumption habits. Meduza analyzes the current and potential consequences of the Kremlin’s ongoing campaign against YouTube.
On June 11, at Berlin’s Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien gallery, Meduza publisher Galina Timchenko sat down with sociologist Polina Aronson for a conversation about the emotional toll of today’s news cycle — on both readers and journalists. One of the questions raised during the Q&A was how censorship is reshaping the ways newsrooms connect with their audiences.
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.