JX Fund – European Fund for Journalism in Exile

Weaponizing the law to silence journalists, turning reporters into public enemies, and cutting off access to information are all tactics familiar to four journalists — Pethő, M. Gessen, Ramón Zamora, and Sevgi Akarçeşme — who gathered at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY to discuss their experiences witnessing the rise of global authoritarian regimes and the warning signs they’re watching emerge in the United States.

The EU’s new return policy risks jeopardising the lives of vulnerable journalists and human rights defenders living in exile. As such, it undermines the very principles of press freedom and human rights it aims to uphold and the safe haven the EU seeks to provide for journalists from all over the world threatened for reporting on the truth. ECPMF and undersigning organisations urge the EU to immediately reconsider these adverse effects and prioritise the protection of those who have already fled persecution.

With our exile expertise, we want to reveal global connections and understand what we can learn from this for free, democratic coexistence. In this episode, Azerbaijani journalist Fatima Karimova writes about the repression of media workers in her homeland and why the European Union repeatedly turns a blind eye to it.

Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence is intensifying efforts to recruit dissidents in Germany as informants by blackmailing their relatives back home, according to an investigation by the Die Welt newspaper. The report details the chain of events and techniques agents use through social media and messaging platforms like WhatsApp to turn exiles into “disposable informants” in espionage parlance.

On 8 December 2024, the fall of the Assad regime transformed Syria’s media landscape. Freedom of speech became tangible. Long-silenced testimonies resurfaced, hidden documents emerged, and once-impossible conversations now fill independent media – but dwindling funding poses new challenges.

The article features an interview with Trịnh Hữu Long, a Vietnamese journalist living in exile in Taiwan. Long explains that he has spent the past nine years introducing himself as “from Vietnam, but based in Taiwan,” where he now considers home. He co-founded and works for the independent magazines Luật Khoa and The Vietnamese.

“I have nowhere to live, I chose words,” says Nicaraguan poet Gioconda Belli in one of her recent verses of pain and exile. Lines that undoubtedly summarize the condition of hundreds of journalists, writers, and artists who over the last seven years have been forced to leave their country, Nicaragua, because of their commitment to freedom.

The article describes how UNESCO is training journalists from Myanmar to improve disability-inclusive reporting, combat stigma, and ensure more accurate and accessible media coverage. It highlights how local and ethnic media, guided by persons with disabilities, can drive meaningful change by shifting narratives, newsroom practices, and representation.

This episode of the mediares podcast takes a closer look at the case in which the Vietnamese government is suing Berlin-based exile journalists. Sebastian Engelbrecht discusses the political background, the implications for press freedom, and what this cross-border legal action means for journalists living in exile.

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.

Law and Democracy Support Foundation (LDSF) strongly condemns the sexual and physical assaults, threats, and surveillance targeting the exiled journalist Sophia Tekwani and her family in Sweden, as part of a dangerous pattern of transnational repression by Zimbabwean authorities.

Sudan’s ongoing war has upended the country’s nascent and burgeoning digital media scene and created a chaotic, polarized information space. The Sudanese journalists who continue to report on the conflict, including the recent wave of killings in El Fasher, risk the most extreme consequences.

Work in exile does not mean a happy end  –  it makes inequalities deeper. Furthermore, two-thirds of journalists in exile leave the profession, while working in editorial offices tend to be more sustainable. Researcher and Professor at Salzburg University, Hanan Badr, discusses the collective experience of journalists in exile.

On the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) is releasing a new report “Ending the Silence on Online Harassment of Journalists”. Authored by journalist and tech policy advisor Elodie Vialle, the report provides an overview of the widespread phenomenon that is online harassment targeting journalists, whose normalisation makes it harder to address.

The situation for independent media is not getting any easier, and the grant crisis of 2025 has shown just how vulnerable journalists are, especially those working in exile. But many newsrooms are developing innovative ideas to replace some of this lost funding and even developing news products aimed at different audiences in the diaspora or elsewhere.

Most exile journalism documents symptoms. We’re investigating root causes: how displacement has become central to how power operates in the 21st century, how the same networks that enable resistance also enable surveillance, and why sanctuary is shrinking even as exile accelerates.

Geographic barriers, constant surveillance, and restricted access to their home countries are just some of the challenges faced by investigative journalists living in exile. How to continue reporting from a distance is one part of the story; how to figure out the basics of everyday life in a new country while continuing to do this journalism is perhaps less discussed.

When war broke out in Sudan in April 2023, Basma Shams witnessed independent journalism collapse under the weight of violence and repression. Maurice Oniang’o spoke with Shams, fellow Ayin reporter Eiad Husham and the network’s managing editor, Tom Rhodes, to find out how grassroots journalism persists in one of the most dangerous countries for reporters.