Thousands of journalists have fled homelands due to repression, threats and conflict, UN expert says

UNITED NATIONS — Thousands of journalists have fled their home countries in recent years to escape political repression, save their lives and escape conflict – but in exile they are often vulnerable to physical, digital and legal threats, a UN investigator said on Wednesday.

Irene Khan said in a report to the UN General Assembly that the number of journalists in exile has increased as the space for independent and critical media “shrinks in democratic countries where authoritarian trends are gaining ground.”

Today, she said, free, independent and diverse media that support democracy and hold the powerful to account are absent or severely limited in more than a third of the world’s countries, home to more than two-thirds of the world’s population.

The UN’s independent investigator for the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression said most journalists and some independent media have left their countries so they can report and investigate freely “without fear or favor.”

But Khan, a Bangladeshi lawyer who previously served as secretary general of Amnesty International, said exiled journalists often find themselves in precarious positions and face threats against them and their families from their home countries, without assured legal status or adequate support to to continue working in their country. of refuge.

“Fearing for their own safety or that of their families at home and struggling to survive financially and overcome the many challenges of living abroad, many journalists end up giving up their profession,” she said. “Exile thus becomes yet another way to silence critical voices – another form of press censorship.”

Khan, whose mandate comes from the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council, said there are international legal protections for journalists in exile, ranging from full-time professional reporters to bloggers who publish on the Internet and elsewhere. The problem is “the inability of states to fulfill their obligations under international law,” she said.

In recent years, Khan said, hundreds of journalists have fled from Afghanistan, Belarus, China, Ethiopia, Iran, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Russia, Sudan, Somalia, Turkey and Ukraine. In addition, smaller numbers have fled from a range of other countries, including Burundi, Guatemala, India, Pakistan and Tajikistan, “just to name a few,” she said.

Khan said there is no record of human rights violations committed by countries outside their borders. But there is anecdotal evidence, including victim testimonies, scientific research and the experience of civil society organizations, that suggests “a high prevalence” of such “transnational repression” targets exiled journalists and media outlets, she said.

Khan said that “the massacre of exiled Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul was an outrageous, audacious act of transnational repression.” Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist who entered the consulate on October 2, 2018, said he was given documents for his upcoming wedding never surfaced and his remains were never found.

Khan also pointed to Turkey’s extraterritorial kidnappings and forced returns of at least 100 Turkish nationals, including journalists, from many countries, and Iranian attacks on exiled Iranian journalists and media outlets, as well as Iranian and Iranian journalists and media staffers working for the BBC to work. Persian-language service.

She said prominent Iranian exiled journalist Rana Rahimpour received death threats against herself, her husband, her children and her elderly parents in February 2020.

Khan said the world witnessed a blatant example of forcible kidnapping when Belarusian authorities used a fake bomb threat, in violation of international law, to divert a commercial airliner while exiled media worker Raman Pratasevich in May 2021 traveled to the country’s main airport. He was arrested. convicted, sentenced to eight years in prison and later pardoned.

On digital transnational repression, the UN Special Rapporteur said efforts to intimidate and silence journalists and their sources and promote self-censorship online have increased over the past decade.

Khan said common practices include “recruiting armies of trolls and bots to amplify vicious personal attacks on individual journalists and discredit them and their reporting, blocking banned news sites or jamming broadcasts, and targeting digital surveillance.” Online attacks, including death threats, rape threats and smear campaigns, have increased dramatically in the past decade, she said.

Digital surveillance has also increased dramatically over the past decade as spyware allows authorities to access journalists’ phones and other devices without their knowledge, Khan said. In early 2022, journalists from El Salvador fled to Costa Rica, Mexico and elsewhere after civil society investigations reported the use of Pegasus spyware on their devices.

Khan said exiled journalists often face two major legal threats from their home countries: “investigation, prosecution and punishment in absentia, and pursuit of their extradition on trumped-up criminal charges.”

Hong Kong’s recently passed National Security Law, supplemented by the Safeguarding National Security Ordnance, “criminalizes secession, subversion, terrorism and ‘collusion with foreign organizations’ in sweeping terms and with extraterritorial scope,” she said. It has been widely used against independent journalists in Hong Kong, hampering the work of exiled journalists and forcing many to self-censor.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Khan said, the country passed draconian laws that punish anyone who discredits the armed forces or spreads false information about the military operation. This has led to independent media censoring themselves, closing their doors or leaving the country. Russian courts have handed down judgments in absentia against several exiled journalists, she said.

Khan called on countries hosting exiled journalists to provide them with visas and work permits.

Exiled journalists also need better protection from physical and online attacks, long-term support from civil society and press freedom groups, and “they need companies to ensure that the technologies essential to journalism are not disrupted or weaponized against them “, she says. said.