JX Fund – European Fund for Journalism in Exile

In Nicaragua, journalism has been persecuted, censored, and criminalized by the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo since 2018. By 2022, several journalists were in jail for practicing their profession, many of them had been assaulted by the Police and regime sympathizers, and three independent media outlets—La Prensa, CONFIDENCIAL, and 100% Noticias—had been closed and confiscated, and dozens of journalists had gone into exile to avoid prison.

In the investigative journalist Elena Kostyuchenko’s new book about Russia, resistance is carried out through small, discreet acts.

Thousands of journalists around the world have had to seek exile in other countries in recent years amidst rising political repression, an independent United Nations investigator, Irene Khan, told the global body’s General Assembly in a report last week. Ms Khan’s findings shine a worrying light on the state of the world that all countries, especially democracies, need to reflect on and address.

Lázaro Yuri Valle Roca, a Cuban independent journalist who had been imprisoned in Cuba since 2021 because of his reporting, was released Wednesday on the condition that he leave the island for exile in the United States.

Since 1993, Eritrea’s regime has suppressed media and freedom of expression. Exiled journalists defy censorship to inform their fellow citizens and keep independent reporting alive. IJNet puts some of them in the spotlight.

YouTube remains the only major US-based social media platform available in Russia. It’s become “indispensable” to everyday people, making a ban tricky. Journalists and dissidents are taking advantage.

Following last year’s joint investigation into the use of NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware against Galina Timchenko, co-founder, CEO, and publisher of Meduza, Access Now, the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto (“the Citizen Lab”), and independent digital security expert Nikolai Kvantiliani have uncovered how at least seven more Russian, Belarusian, Latvian, and Israeli journalists and activists have been targeted with NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware within the EU.

At least seven journalists and activists who have been vocal critics of the Kremlin and its allies have been targeted inside the EU by a state using Pegasus, the hacking spyware made by Israel’s NSO Group, according to a new report by security researchers.

From Russia to Sudan, rising authoritarianism and threats to press freedom are driving a growing number of journalists to flee their home countries and try to resume their work from abroad. Media organizations in democratic countries have a collective duty to support them.

“I consider this label repressive. But I can say for sure that we will continue to work, whatever they call us,” says Daria Poryadina, editor of the exile-Russian news outlet SOTA, that got declared an ‘undesirable organization’ by Russia’s Prosecutor General on May 16.

A large-scale surveillance program covertly operated by the Turkish Foreign Ministry’s intelligence arm has been targeting critical and independent journalists living in exile in Europe, the United States and Canada, as revealed by confidential documents obtained by Nordic Monitor.

“Journalism done from exile remains the last reserve of all our freedoms.” Carlos Fernando Chamorro received the Golden Pen of Freedom during the 75th WAN-IFRA World News Media Congress – read his acceptance speech.

A Moscow Court has registered a misdemeanor case accusing Meduza co-founder Galina Timchenko of participating in an “undesirable organization,” Mediazona reported on May 27, citing online records.

Journalists living in exile in Kenya are finding support to continue working in their professions, thanks to a fellowship provided by media groups. For Voice of America Victoria Amunga visited the hub in Nairobi.

Thousands of journalists have fled their home countries in recent years to escape political repression, save their lives and escape conflict – but in exile they are often vulnerable to physical, digital and legal threats, a U.N. investigator said.

Since the 2021 military coup, Myanmar has become one of the worst countries globally in terms of the number of journalists jailed, with 206 reporters detained including 31 women over the past three years, according to a recent report by the International Center for Not-For-Profit Law (ICNL).

She has been actively developing grassroots journalism in a region where ethnic minorities have struggled to have their stories heard in the face of the dominant community’s influence. Now in exile, Nan Paw Gays commitment to advancing the voices of the ethnic minorities in Myanmar continues. In an interview with WAN-IFRA she shares thoughts and experiences of her journey in exile.

Podcast radios are becoming a new media niche in the Russian media landscape challenged by war-reinforced oppression. The Fix talked with Maksim Kurnikov, the head of Ekho Online, which was the first in the Russian media landscape to launch such a service, and Polina Filippova, the producer of podcasts of Radio Sakharov, which has been operating for a year.