JX Fund – European Fund for Journalism in Exile

Sudanese journalists forced into exile in Uganda are risking their safety to report on the war back home, ensuring the conflict remains in the global spotlight. Despite limitations, international support is emerging, with the Thomson Foundation offering programmes for civil society organisations and journalists in conflict zones, focusing on crisis communication, advocacy, resilience, and the disproportionate impact of conflict on women in media and civil society.

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.

Is reporting possible while living under persecution? When you don’t know from where you’ll be attacked, or if you will be discredited, threatened, intimidated, or forced into exile? Where the choices are sometimes as stark as choosing jail, silence, or exile? In Nicaragua, which has been governed by former guerilla fighter turned strongman Daniel Ortega since 2007, press freedom has fallen precipitously.

After almost 14 years of civil war, the lightning overthrow of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad in December has unleashed the possibility of returning home for hundreds of exiled journalists. Complex legal and family obligations, security concerns, and sectarian tensions mean permanent return is rarely an option.

Iranian authorities have carried out a wave of arrests and multiple executions of people suspected of links to Israeli intelligence agencies, in the wake of the recent war between the two countries. Analysts view these tactics as part of a broader strategy to silence dissent and intimidate exiled media workers.

With the announcement of a U.S.-brokered ceasefire between Iran and Israel (one both governments pledged to uphold conditionally, contingent on the other’s restraint), speculation has begun to shift from whether the conflict would escalate into full-scale regional war to whether this pause might create space for diplomacy, reconstruction, or even domestic reform in Iran.

“This is evidence for the future. It’s critical to document these crimes now, even if justice is delayed,” says Maria Zholobova, a Russian journalist in exile and an ICFJ Jim Hoge Reporting Fellow, who investigated how the son of Ukraine’s ousted president allegedly profits from Ukraine’s Russian-occupied territories.

For many Nicaraguans fleeing the Ortega-Murillo regime, objects carried into exile hold deep emotional value—links to the past and symbols of hope for return. This is the story of an exiled journalist and his collection of keys. He calls himself *Castro, in homage to an influential high school teacher in Managua who suggested he study journalism.

Exiled journalist Mahtab Qolizadeh highlights the struggles of Iranian asylum seekers in Germany, caught between bureaucracy and uncertainty. As the Iran-Israel conflict deepens, many—like political dissident Alborz Zahedi—remain in limbo, hoping for change but facing a system that offers little clarity or relief.

The systematic and relentless persecution orchestrated by the Ortega-Murillo regime has led to the closure, confiscation, and expulsion of hundreds of independent media outlets and journalists from the country. For many, exile has become the only way to escape censorship, threats, and physical attacks – and to continue reporting.

At JHR, forcibly displaced people are recognized as among the most vulnerable and marginalized. Their stories are often overlooked, their rights de-prioritized. Journalists play a key role in changing that—which is why JHR trains and equips them to report on the realities of displacement and amplify refugees’ voices.

In a new study from DW Akademie and IPLEX, Central American women journalists in exile explain the challenges they face – and their resilience. Being a journalist in Central America is challenging enough, but the difficulties facing a journalist in exile can be even greater. For women journalists in exile in Central America, their work can be overwhelming.

This podcast episode features a conversation with Sergey Lukashevskiy about his work as a Russian exile journalist in Germany. Having lived in Germany since 2022, he is developing “Radio Sakharov” as a media outlet for the Russian exile community. He discusses the challenges of reporting from exile, and the state of human rights and press freedom in Russia.

After fleeing persecution by Daniel Ortega’s regime, seven Nicaraguan journalists exiled in Costa Rica have been unable to renew their identification documents: Nicaragua refuses them, and Costa Rica has yet to fully recognize them. They are not locked in a terminal, but they have no homeland.

Once in exile to escape threats and danger, journalists soon face a new set of challenges: how to sustain their careers, communities and reporting from afar. ICFJ’s International Journalists’ Network (IJNet), in collaboration with the Network of Exiled Media Outlets (NEMO), has expanded its Exiled Media Toolkit to include a comprehensive section on viability, produced by ICFJ Knight Fellow José J. Nieves.

The Iranian regime has launched a fresh wave of intimidation against exiled Iranian journalists and their families back home, dissident media workers and human rights advocates claim. Earlier this week, the BBC publicly accused the Iranian government of escalating its long-standing harassment of journalists working for its Persian-language service.

A relentless crackdown over the past 18 months has eradicated any semblance of independent media from authoritarian Azerbaijan. But as President Ilham Aliyev casts critical journalists as enemies of the state, they continue to try to hold power to account — from exile, or even from behind bars.

For over four decades, Persian-language media in exile have played an influential, often contentious role in shaping public discourse about Iran. Emerging in response to the silencing of dissent and the monopolization of narratives by the Islamic Republic, these media outlets created a parallel space of dialogue and imagination.