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A new report from Cloudflare, a company that provides cybersecurity services to internet providers, highlights the array of digital transnational repression tactics employed against exile media outlets and journalists. The report finds that around 5 percent of the 41 billion requests directed to exile journalism websites between February 2025 and January 2026 were harmful and sought to disrupt the outlets’ connections to their readers.
China and Russia, principally, test the limits of this new period of autocratic impunity—not just in the abstract but in ways that fundamentally impact citizens, businesses, democratic institutions, and the practice of basic freedoms in every region. This essay series analyzes how these emerging patterns will create new vulnerabilities for democracy actors.
Ten years after a coup attempt on July 15, 2016, Turkey’s independent media has been largely dismantled through a combination of mass imprisonment, outlet closures, regulatory punishment, internet censorship and the consolidation of media ownership in pro-government hands. This and more has continued putting pressure on journalists in exile.
Across much of Asia, a quiet transformation is taking place in journalism. While many established news organizations continue to grapple with declining advertising revenue, shifting audience behavior, platform dependence, and growing competition for attention, a diverse group of independent digital publishers is attempting to chart a different course.
What do Saudi journalist Turki al-Jasser, Philippine journalist Frenchie Mae Cumpio and Chinese journalist Zhang Zhan have in common? All were prosecuted in the name of “national security” between 2020 and 2026. They are far from isolated cases. From Gaza to Hong Kong to Managua, 100s of journalists are being targeted for providing citizens with reliable news.
Poisonings, cyberattacks, raids on the homes of family member, russian journalists are persecuted by their authoritarian home country even when in exile. Yet, media professionals in exile in Germany, their host country, are a vital part of an informed society and defend all of our rights to reliable information. Read the RSF report on it here.
RSF finds Russian journalists in Germany face transnational repression including surveillance, digital attacks, intimidation, pressure on relatives and even suspected poisonings. The report urges Germany and the EU to better protect exiled media through dedicated support, reporting mechanisms, sanctions and coordinated action to safeguard press freedom.
Following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, many independent Russian journalists and opposition politicians fled abroad, rebuilding their channels. This article argues that, operating from exile, they have fallen into a trap: creating great content, but the Kremlin controls it. They must shift to a radical new approach, teaching citizens inside Russia how to safely test reality.
To mark World Refugee Day on 20 June, RSF released a map showing the exile of journalists supported by RSF since 2021. Against an international backdrop the number of countries from which media professionals fled has doubled in five years. For these journalists continuing their work is hampered by the dangers that come with it and the limitations of reception policies.
A new Human Rights Myanmar report, released in May in partnership with the IPCM, warns that major digital platforms failed to protect Myanmar’s independent media during the junta’s 2025-26 elections, enabling censorship, threats, and financial exclusion against exile-based journalism. It describes the polls as a “sham election”.
Written by media practitioners, editors, media coaches and consultants who have actively worked with MDIF’s partner outlets in the region, this report brings together articles on how independent media organizations are adapting, innovating and building resilience in increasingly difficult political and financial environments.
For the first time in the history of the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) World Press Freedom Index, over half of the world’s countries now fall into the “difficult” or “very serious” categories for press freedom. In 25 years, the average score of all 180 countries and territories surveyed in the Index has never been so low.
The PEN International Case List’s primary role is to inform its membership and others engaged in advocacy for free expression and serves to enable PEN Centres to identify where their focus could be. It is an indication of where the problems lie in any given year, enabling reflection on patterns and trends that can serve to inform future actions.
Last year, governments all over the world assassinated, assaulted, kidnapped, threatened, and harassed critics beyond their borders. Freedom House recorded 126 new incidents of physical, direct transnational repression during the year, bringing the total number of cases in our database, which spans 2014 to 2025, to 1,375.
What does it take to address the funding needs of public interest media with locally anchored solutions? Public interest media remains an essential pillar of democratic societies. Ensuring its future will require funding systems that are more diverse, more resilient, and more locally rooted than before. This report provides valuable insights into what it takes to begin building those systems.
Media makers forced into exile share candid insights on continuing independent work from abroad in this ASC MediaRisk panel discussion. Contributors reflect on safety challenges, digital threats, audience engagement and sustaining journalistic identity while displaced. Their perspectives highlight resilience and the complex realities of reporting beyond borders.
Reporters Without Borders investigates how the Chinese state’s global media strategy aims to extend control over international information and narratives, from expanding state broadcasters abroad to influencing foreign media and exporting censorship models. The report warns this push could threaten independent journalism and press freedom worldwide.
The Cuban government has blocked independent news outlet El Toque, further shrinking information space for citizens already cut off from uncensored reporting. The move highlights ongoing efforts by authorities to suppress critical journalism, deepen digital censorship, and limit access to diverse sources – complicating efforts by exiled and independent Cuban journalists to reach audiences.