For 40 years, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), based in New York, has been protecting journalists and press freedom worldwide. Its Emergencies Director, Lucy Westcott, describes the needs of journalists in exile and the help CPJ can provide. This interview is taken from the 13th issue of Mediation, entitled ‘Structuring exiled journalism in a more authoritarian world’, which you can find here.
Doh Athan was initially produced in the country, why did you have to leave?
What are the general conditions of safety for journalists worldwide?
Lucy Westcott: Journalists around the world face a variety of physical, digital, and psychosocial safety challenges because of their work, mainly when they cover war, civil unrest, protests, and elections. 99 journalists and media workers were killed in 2023, including 77 in the Israel-Gaza war, and hundreds were injured. And in December 2023, 320 journalists were imprisoned, 36% of them in China, Myanmar or Belarus.
Journalists also face threats and harassment, both in-person and online. Digital safety concerns include online abuse, doxing, hacking, and the use of deep fakes to discredit journalists and their news outlets. CPJ has also documented legal threats against journalists, which are often designed to silence them, and are weaponized to attack press freedom.
To escape these threats, many journalists are forced into exile every year, or displaced within their own countries. In the last three years, CPJ's level of exile support provided to journalists increased by 227%, from 63 journalists in 2020 up to 206 in 2023.
What are the main reasons why more and more journalists are forced to exile?
This is mainly due to a rise in authoritarianism globally, as well as global conflict. In countries like Iran or Russia, where it is incredibly dangerous to be an independent journalist, journalists flee to escape threats made against them, their families, and their colleagues, as well as jail time in retaliation for their work. And there are currently long-lasting crises in countries such as Ethiopia, Nicaragua, Sudan, Myanmar, Ukraine, and Afghanistan, which have had enormous impacts on press freedom and the lives of journalists.
Over the past few years, significant numbers of journalists from these countries and others have fled to safer countries. However, a lack of strong and effective visa pathways to safe countries, as well as the threat of transnational repression, means that journalists in exile often remain in precarious situations.
What help does CPJ provide for them and what remains to be done?
CPJ provides individual assistance grants to journalists in exile. Exile support grants help journalists cover the costs of basic necessities when they first go into exile, including rent, bills, food, transportation, communication costs, and warm clothing. CPJ also helps with the transportation costs of getting to a safe country. Exile support remains the largest area of direct financial assistance CPJ provides to journalists.
One outstanding area of need for journalists in exile, unless they have dual citizenship, is better and more effective emergency visa pathways to quickly flee their home country. We know that many journalists also deal with mental health challenges in exile, and there is a lot of room for more tailored and more effective ways to help journalists with this need.