"Findings indicate that Afghan exiled journalists worldwide struggle to continue practicing their profession. Even among the few who still work in media, the vast majority depend on additional sources of income. This demonstrates a clear need for support, especially since many respondents aspire to
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establish their own medium in exile in the future and would like to continue working in the field. Most Afghan journalists in exile would like to continue to report on Afghanistan related issues and thus reach Afghans both inside and outside the country with their independent stories. Most of the participants rated solidarity within the Afghan media community as either low or very low. This trend is even more pronounced in Germany. At the same time, an absolute majority of the respondents indicated a very high interest in connecting with the Afghan media community in the countries where they are currently based or in other countries." (https://jx-fund.org)
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"Transnational repression is strategically employed by autocrats, enabled by underprepared host governments, and spreading rapidly around the world. This report aims to assess the strengths and weaknesses in the global understanding of and responses to transnational repression, so that governments,
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private companies, and civil society organizations can better equip themselves to defend human rights. Transnational repression should be recognized for what it is: a direct threat to fundamental freedoms, state sovereignty, and democracy, and a disturbing physical manifestation of global authoritarianism." (Page 2)
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"Throughout Africa, the right to publish — like political power — has to be grabbed; it cannot be exercised solely on politicians’ goodwill or the strength of a Constitution. Thus, good journalism demands more than an ability to cultivate news sources and generate content. It requires courage.
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In this lies one of the continent’s gravest tragedies — the growing army of talented men and women driven from their homelands for thinking critically and daring to speak out. Their absence may give politicians synthetic comfort, but in reality it leaves their nations intellectually the poorer. Hounded is both a tribute and a record of history. It’s an acknowledgement of the commitment to truth and justice in little-known corners of the continent — the cluttered desk of a lone blogger in Ethiopia, bustling newsroom in Burundi and the dimly-lit studio of a Lagos pirate radio — which has kept the flame of hope burning under the most stifling of political rules. The stories are from 16 jurisdictions, including Madagascar, Chad, Rwanda, Uganda and Togo, and cover different calendar periods." (Page 3)
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"This report is the product of an effort to understand the scale and scope of “transnational repression,” in which governments reach across national borders to silence dissent among their diaspora and exile communities. Freedom House assembled cases of transnational repression from public source
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s, including UN and government documents, human rights reports, and credible news outlets, in order to generate a detailed picture of this global phenomenon.
The project compiled a catalogue of 608 direct, physical cases of transnational repression since 2014. In each incident, the origin country’s authorities physically reached an individual living abroad, whether through detention, assault, physical intimidation, unlawful deportation, rendition, or suspected assassination. The list includes 31 origin states conducting physical transnational repression in 79 host countries. This total is certainly only partial; hundreds of other physical cases that lacked sufficient documentation, especially detentions and unlawful deportations, are not included in Freedom House’s count. Nevertheless, even this conservative enumeration shows that what often appear to be isolated incidents—an assassination here, a kidnapping there—in fact represent a pernicious and pervasive threat to human freedom and security.
Moreover, physical transnational repression is only the tip of the iceberg. The consequences of each physical attack ripple out into a larger community. And beyond the physical cases compiled for this report are the much more widespread tactics of “everyday” transnational repression: digital threats, spyware, and coercion by proxy, such as the imprisonment of exiles’ families. For millions of people around the world, transnational repression has become not an exceptional tool, but a common and institutionalized practice used by dozens of regimes to control people outside their borders." (Executive summary)
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"This paper shows how digital communication technologies enable new and influence established tactics of state repression beyond borders. Based on interviews with Iranian activists and journalists who were forced to leave the country after the controversial elections of 2009, I analyze mechanisms an
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d aims of repressive measures targeting exiled dissidents. I argue that in an environment of intense transnational communication and information exchange, authoritarian regimes can monitor and respond to the activities of political exiles rapidly and on a large scale. State actors seek to undermine the links of exiles into the country (horizontal voice) as well as to punish claims to public attention that challenge the regime’s position in the domestic and international arenas (vertical voice). With these measures, authorities pursue a parallel strategy: expanding authoritarian power and practices beyond borders while distancing political exiles from contacts in the home country." (Abstract)
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"Findings of this research offer new evidence on the extensive campaign of violence and intimidation against journalists in Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan and South Sudan. At the same time, it also recalls exiled journalists’ commitment to freedom of the press and freedom of expression despite
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harsh life conditions, borderless surveillance and very little perspective of improvement." (Key findings, page 10)
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"Our findings are based on responses to an online questionnaire completed by 69 Iranian journalists living and working outside Iran. A majority of respondents surveyed left Iran after 2005 and work as journalists for online media outlets [...] Our research indicates that Iranian journalists living a
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nd working abroad remain deeply connected to both the Iranian public and the broader Farsi-speaking diaspora, and believe their most important role is to inform both “publics” about issues not covered in the Iranian domestic news. As such, a majority of respondents surveyed are primarily employed with Farsi-language media outlets, covering Iranian current events and politics, as well as “red-line” topics that journalists inside Iran are forbidden to cover. However—and importantly—our findings show that a majority of respondents do not believe that their role is to act as activists, contributing to the civil society in Iran, but rather to inform the public with objective, fact-based reporting. Respondents in our survey strongly align themselves with public-interest journalism, in which the media’s primary role is to inform the citizenry and serve as a check on political and economic elites." (Summary of key findings, page 4-5)
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"Durch ein vom Europäischen Flüchtlingsfonds (EFF) gefördertes einjähriges Projekt hat Reporter ohne Grenzen erstmals versucht, mehr über die Lebenssituation von nach Deutschland geflohenen Journalisten oder Bloggern in Erfahrung zu bringen. Dabei ging es vor allem darum, welche konkreten Probl
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eme im Asylverfahren und danach auftauchen und die Journalisten daran hindern, ihre berufliche Tätigkeit fortzusetzen. Die im März 2011 gestartete Umfrage basierte auf mehrsprachigen Fragebögen (Deutsch, Englisch, Farsi, Russisch), die an die Zielgruppe versandt hat. Den Kontakt zu den Betroffenen stellte das Nothilfereferat direkt oder indirekt über Kooperationspartner (Flüchtlingsräte, Beratungsstellen) her. Der vorliegende Bericht stützt sich auf die Aussagen von Medienschaffenden, mit denen das Nothilfereferat bereits zusammengearbeitet oder im Verlauf des Projekts Kontakt aufgenommen hat. Er erhebt nicht den Anspruch, repräsentativ für die Situation von Journalisten im Exil in Deutschland zu sein. Ausgehend von 59 versendeten Fragebögen, von denen Reporter ohne Grenzen 49 ausgefüllt zurück erhielt, kann aber von vergleichsweise relevanten Erkenntnissen ausgegangen werden." (Einführung, Seite 2)
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"The 2009 presidential elections and the surrounding events represent one of the most dramatic moments in contemporary Iranian history. The massive demonstrations over the official election results soon evolved into a broad protest movement demanding civil rights and political change, confronting th
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e Islamic Republic with a significant crisis. When the Iranian regime responded with widespread repression, journalists were among its main targets – many were arrested, or pressurised, and some are still in prison; more than 100 have left their country in the biggest exodus of journalists since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. In this book, 12 Iranian journalists, exiled after the election crisis, deliver poignant accounts of the events and their personal experiences during those days. In their articles they describe the agitation during the election campaign and the initial protests as well as the period of repression and arrests that followed. Others analyse the key moments of the protest movement or reflect on their life and work in exile. All authors hail from a new generation of professional journalists deeply involved in the struggle for reform and the democratisation of Iran’s Islamic Republic. Their writings not only provide records of the turbulent developments after the elections, but also attest to a political culture that cannot fail to change their country." (Publisher description)
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"This Report is an initial attempt to discover what support is currently available for exiled journalists in Europe. It examines the help and opportunities on offer in eleven countries: Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Spain and the UK.9 Much of the re
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search has been carried out by exiled journalists based in these countries. We apologise in advance for any gaps in our knowledge, and this Report should be seen for what it is – a journalistic investigation designed to provide a snapshot of the current situation. Each country report provides statistics and information about support work being done by journalists’ unions and other NGOs. Some contain outlines of specific projects working with exiled journalists and case studies of personal experience. In describing some of the ground-breaking work that is being done to help exiles recover from the trauma of their experiences, and resume their careers in the media, this Report seeks both to identify success stories that might bear replication in other countries, and to examine gaps in provision. As with our earlier RAM Report,10 the aim of this Report is to encourage others to join in efforts to assist refugee and asylum-seeking journalists to find a new life." (Introduction, page 8)
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