JX Fund – European Fund for Journalism in Exile

Five years after the Taliban’s takeover, research organizations and countless other Afghan-led networks persist—training scholars, running underground classrooms, providing legal aid by phone. With NED support, over a thousand partners were evacuated to safety. Despite erasure from public life, Afghan women and civic leaders continue building the foundations for their country’s future.

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.

Since Russians invasian in 2022 many journalists emigrated to keep independently reporting about the war to Russians, many outlets have launched English-language versions of their publications in order to find new revenue streams to support their work, as the Russian authorities have introduced increasingly restrictive legal measures targeting support for independent media.

Amu TV was born out of the collapse of Afghanistan’s media landscape, and is one of the most influential exiled media outlets serving Afghanistan today. By broadcasting via satellite from the US, the channel has bypassed Taliban censorship and reached millions of viewers inside the country, offering a rare space for uncensored news, political debate, entertainment, and more.

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.

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.

Information control has long been central to the Kremlin. Since Vladimir Putin took power, independent journalism has faced growing repression, accelerated after the Kursk submarine disaster (2000), the Moscow theater siege (2002), and the Beslan school hostage crisis (2004). Critical outlets were punished, steadily eroding Russia’s independent media.

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.

In this podcast episode of Booda Media’s “Fasl-e-Digher” program, Lina Rozbeh, a renowned Afghan poet, writer and journalists talks about women, migration, war, identity, freedom, the Taliban and the current situation and future of Afghanistan. Moreover, she discusses her experience in media and literature, the fate of women, the role of intellectuals and the responsibility of media.

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.

Exiled Afghan journalists are keeping critical reporting alive through Amu TV and its flagship show Jan-e-Gap, broadcasting from studios in the U.S., Canada, France, and Turkey. Host Sadaf Rahimi and co-founders Lotfullah Najafizada and Sami Mahdi connect millions of Afghan viewers to open debate, exposing abuses and giving a voice to those silenced under the Taliban.

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.