{"id":11257,"date":"2024-08-22T11:18:45","date_gmt":"2024-08-22T09:18:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/lack-of-emergency-visa-pathways-to-safe-countries"},"modified":"2024-08-22T11:18:45","modified_gmt":"2024-08-22T09:18:45","slug":"lack-of-emergency-visa-pathways-to-safe-countries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/lack-of-emergency-visa-pathways-to-safe-countries","title":{"rendered":"LACK OF EMERGENCY VISA PATHWAYS TO SAFE COUNTRIES"},"content":{"rendered":"

For 40 years, the Committee to Protect\u00a0Journalists (CPJ), based in New York, has\u00a0been protecting journalists and press\u00a0freedom worldwide. Its Emergencies\u00a0Director, Lucy Westcott, describes the\u00a0needs of journalists in exile and the help CPJ\u00a0can provide.\u00a0<\/strong>This interview is taken from the 13th issue of Mediation, entitled \u2018Structuring exiled journalism in a more authoritarian world\u2019, which you can find here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Doh Athan was initially produced in the country, why did you have to leave?<\/b><\/p>\n

What are the general conditions of safety for\u00a0journalists worldwide?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lucy Westcott:<\/strong> Journalists around the world face a\u00a0variety of physical, digital, and psychosocial safety\u00a0challenges because of their work, mainly when they\u00a0cover war, civil unrest, protests, and elections. 99\u00a0journalists and media workers were killed in 2023,\u00a0including 77 in the Israel-Gaza war, and hundreds\u00a0were injured. And in December 2023, 320 journalists\u00a0were imprisoned, 36% of them in China, Myanmar\u00a0or Belarus.<\/p>\n

Journalists also face threats and harassment, both\u00a0in-person and online. Digital safety concerns\u00a0include online abuse, doxing, hacking, and the use\u00a0of deep fakes to discredit journalists and their news\u00a0outlets. CPJ has also documented legal threats\u00a0against journalists, which are often designed to\u00a0silence them, and are weaponized to attack press\u00a0freedom.<\/p>\n

To escape these threats, many journalists are forced\u00a0into exile every year, or displaced within their own\u00a0countries. In the last three years, CPJ’s level of exile\u00a0support provided to journalists increased by 227%,\u00a0from 63 journalists in 2020 up to 206 in 2023.<\/p>\n

What are the main reasons why more and more\u00a0journalists are forced to exile?<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is mainly due to a\u00a0rise in authoritarianism\u00a0globally, as well as global\u00a0conflict. In countries like\u00a0Iran or Russia, where it\u00a0is incredibly dangerous\u00a0to be an independent\u00a0journalist, journalists\u00a0flee to escape threats\u00a0made against them,\u00a0their families, and their colleagues, as well as jail\u00a0time in retaliation for their work. And there are\u00a0currently long-lasting crises in countries such as\u00a0Ethiopia, Nicaragua, Sudan, Myanmar, Ukraine, and\u00a0Afghanistan, which have had enormous impacts on\u00a0press freedom and the lives of journalists.<\/p>\n

Over the past few years, significant numbers of\u00a0journalists from these countries and others have\u00a0fled to safer countries. However, a lack of strong\u00a0and effective visa pathways to safe countries, as\u00a0well as the threat of transnational repression, means\u00a0that journalists in exile often remain in precarious\u00a0situations.<\/p>\n

What help does CPJ provide for them and what\u00a0remains to be done?<\/strong><\/p>\n

CPJ provides individual assistance grants to journalists\u00a0in exile. Exile support grants help journalists cover\u00a0the costs of basic necessities when they first go\u00a0into exile, including rent, bills, food, transportation,\u00a0communication costs, and warm clothing. CPJ also\u00a0helps with the transportation costs of getting to a\u00a0safe country. Exile support remains the largest area of\u00a0direct financial assistance CPJ provides to journalists.<\/p>\n

One outstanding area of need for journalists in exile,\u00a0unless they have dual citizenship, is better and more\u00a0effective emergency visa pathways to quickly flee\u00a0their home country. We know that many journalists\u00a0also deal with mental health challenges in exile, and\u00a0there is a lot of room for more tailored and more\u00a0effective ways to help journalists with this need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For 40 years, the Committee to Protect\u00a0Journalists (CPJ), based in New York, has\u00a0been protecting journalists and press\u00a0freedom worldwide. Its Emergencies\u00a0Director, Lucy Westcott, describes the\u00a0needs of journalists in exile and the help CPJ\u00a0can provide.\u00a0This interview is taken from the 13th issue of Mediation, entitled \u2018Structuring exiled journalism in a more authoritarian world\u2019, which you can find […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":11258,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[196],"tags":[239],"class_list":["post-11257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-our-news","tag-how-we-work-information-dialogue"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-21 01:56:26","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}