Exiled journalists share firsthand accounts of navigating asylum, work abroad during virtual panel, May 4

As part of the Club’s extended World Press Freedom Day activities, the National Press Club’s Press Freedom Committee and the Journalism Institute are hosting an online panel discussion from 11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. ET on Thursday, May 4, to highlight cases of exiled journalists from around the world. 

Join us to hear what life has been like for a few of these exiled journalists since they made the decision to pursue life and freedom abroad. Registration is free and open.

The reasons an increasing number of foreign journalists decide to flee their home countries vary — from government crackdowns to foreign invasions, military coups to drug cartel threats. 

But the trendline is unmistakable and harrowing for what it tells us about global norms around intolerance for critical watchdog journalism. As hundreds of journalists seek asylum and try to build a life abroad, the support they receive in their new locations can vary greatly and, with it, the ability of these exiled newsgatherers to practice their craft. 

Panelists plan to discuss:

• Experiences navigating the asylum and immigration process in a new host country, barriers to entry, and gaining work visas;
• Decisions around whether to continue to work as a journalist or pursue a different line of work; and
• Technical, personnel, and financial reporting challenges of efforts to cover their home countries from afar.

Panelists include:

• María Lilly Delgado, co-founder of Traces of Impunity, a data and investigative journalism effort that highlights human rights violations in Nicaragua. Until late 2021, she worked as a freelance correspondent for Noticiero Univision, reporting on the socio-political crisis in Nicaragua until threats prompted her to go into exile in Miami.
• Muhamadjon Kabirov, editor-in-chief of Azda TV, a Tajik-language news network based in Poland, and board president of the Foundation for Intercultural Integration, which assists refugees in Poland.
• Sonny Swe, co-founder of Frontier Myanmar, an independent media organization now operating out of northern Thailand that covers Burmese news. Swe previously spent nearly a decade in prison for breaching the military junta’s censorship laws during his time running the Myanmar Times, an English-language newspaper that he also founded.
• Masrat Zahra, an independent photojournalist from the Indian-administered region of Kashmir. Her photographs of human rights violations prompted the Indian government in 2020 to charge her with “anti-national activities.” Fearing arrest if she is forced to return to India, Masrat is a Knight Wallce fellow at the University of Michigan.
• Moderator: Preethi Nallu, global director at Report for the World and the former founding editor of the news outlet Refugees Deeply