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The rollback of press freedom programs, as well as the loss of some funding from European nations refocused on security closer to home, has left exiled media outlets from Myanmar, Belarus, Afghanistan, South Sudan, and other countries that lack a free press facing the same question: When decades-long donors pull out, what comes next?
In late 2025, Voices From Far Away met Basma Mostafa, an Egyptian journalist who focuses on human rights violation. In 2020 she was forced to go into exile after being arrested several times. A long journey with uncertainty, loss of identity, no home and a lot of anxiety was about to come. She is one of many exile journalists, who are facing transnational repression: The threatening of a state towards people outside of their borders.
The interview is about the lack of independent media in Azerbaijan, where most people get their news only from state television, and free newspapers have been shut down. It discusses Meydan TV, an independent Azerbaijani media outlet based in Berlin, and features Matt Kasper talking about press freedom, government repression, and the role of media operating in exile.
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.
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.
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.
Syria’s nearly 14-year-long civil war has changed shape. Though there is still fighting and instability, the political transition means many who fled are beginning to return home. Yet for Sara Kontar, a Syrian photographer who has lived in France for nearly a decade, return remains impossible.
When war broke out in Sudan in April 2023, a group of young Sudanese filmmakers were forced into exile. They also had to rethink their film. Khartoum (2025) had started out a year earlier as a collection of quiet observational sketches of ordinary lives in the capital. Now, it had to be reimagined as both the storytellers and their subjects scattered across borders.
The team of the revolutionary newspaper Enab Baladi has returned to Syria. Why it is important to show a presence on the ground now is explained by co-founder Kholoud Helmi.
On a typical evening in the heart of Paris, Taha Siddiqui can be found at his bar, greeting customers and pouring drinks. During busy nights, he’s organizing events there, with an Afghan poet reading her work, anti-war Russian musicians in a punk band, or a director sharing their documentary — all, like him, finding refuge in France. But long before he became a bar owner, Siddiqui was one of Pakistan’s most high-profile investigative journalists, determined to expose corruption and government abuses. In 2018, he fled to Paris, where he has lived in exile ever since.
In 2015, over a million people from Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq sought safety in Germany, including journalists. This movement reshaped politics, society, and journalism, raising new challenges. The latest “Bonjourno” podcast episode explores the experiences and challenges of exile journalism in this context.
With all civil liberties stripped away in Nicaragua, independent journalism in exile has become the last stronghold of freedom to investigate and report the truth. Earlier this month, for International Journalists’ Day (September 8), we shared a special feature on Nicaraguan journalism that has resisted and overcome censorship in Nicaragua for more than seven years.
In contexts of exile and censorship, several independent media outlets have turned to creating original products — leveraging their brand identity, analytical expertise, or connection to specific audiences.
The Spanish-language report ‘Displaced Voices: An X-ray of Latin American Journalistic Exile 2018–2024’ shows that a total of 913 journalists were forced to leave their countries in Latin America between 2028 and 2024. Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba together account for more than 90% of all journalistic exile in the region.
From empowering exiled journalists, to sustaining watchdog journalism in fragile democracies and conflict zones, donor aid often serves as the lifeline for public interest media across the Asia-Pacific region. However, recent research led by DW Akademie reveals that donor aid is sometimes fragmented, poorly coordinated, and even unintentionally harmful.
In today’s independent media ecosystem, membership programs — distinct from traditional “subscriptions” — and grassroots fundraising campaigns are becoming increasingly relevant, particularly for nonprofit outlets. The logic behind these models is simple but powerful: if you cultivate a loyal, engaged, and appreciative community, you can invite them to support your work financially.
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.
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.