The trauma of journalists forced into exile

Hundreds of journalists who had to flee into exile because they had been attacked or threatened are being given an opportunity by Reporters Without Borders to begin publishing their work again. Dozens of journalists silently flee their country every year, without being offered a platform to protest. Most are from Africa and the Middle East, especially Eritrea, Somalia, Iraq and Iran. Most of them have been the victims of reprisals by their government, or the targets of armed militias, organised crime, or political or religious movements. Reporters Without Borders is alarmed by the extent of this problem, which highlights the decline in press freedom around the world. It is extremely dangerous for journalists to use their right to free expression in some countries. Violence is the enemy of press freedom. When journalists are forced into exile, their countries lose valuable independent observers of their political and social situation. Among the most painful blows for journalists forced to flee into exile is finding themselves reduced to silence and forgotten by those they used to address. For this reason, Reporters Without Borders is offering them a forum, a page on its website, where they can express their views, post articles and report on what has been happening to them. Providing these men and women, whose lives and freedom were in jeopardy, with a platform for the stories of their experiences, for their videos and for their reports from exile is the only way to restore their right to speak and the only way to prevent their exile from becoming a victory for the oppressors who wanted to silence them. Journalists under threat hold on until the last moment before fleeing. They leave in response to a need, to a survival instinct. When Roza Malsagova, the editor of the Ingushetiya.ru website, left on a 10-day trip to the Czech Republic, she did not suspect that she would not be returning home to Ingushetia, a republic in the Russian Caucasus adjoining Chechnya where the civilian population is exposed to an appalling level of violence. After the website’s owner, Magomed Yevloyev, was murdered while held by the security forces, Malsagova felt she had no choice but to ask France for asylum. Does exile at least offer protection? There are no guarantees. As well as losing their right to work as journalists, these refugees must face new dangers. The flight into exile can prove extremely unpleasant. In some countries such as Iran or Eritrea, fleeing abroad is regarded as treason. Crossing the border on foot, concealing oneself in someone’s vehicle, seeking refuge in a village, hiding from border guards – this is all part of the experience of going into exile. Protection is just one of the facets of exile. Others include the unbearable periods of waiting, the suffering that results from being uprooted, and sometimes even hunger. Many exiles find themselves in an extremely difficult situation, trapped in an extended exile without any prospect of being able to return home or integrate into the country that has offered them asylum. An Eritrean refugee journalist in the Sudanese capital described his feeling of despair to us. “I’ve been hiding for months in Khartoum, where I have rented a room, because there was less risk here of being kidnapped by the Eritrean security forces present in Sudan,” he said. “But I have no money and eating three meals a day has become a luxury. I have avoided imprisonment and the government’s wrath but this is the first time I have found myself in financial difficulty. I now feel trapped, far from home and facing unprecedented problems.” The luckiest, those who have overcome the thorny problems of visas and residence permits, experience the difficulties that all refugees face – starting from zero, reuniting with their family, finding accommodation, getting training, finding some kind of job and communicating with their new compatriots in the host country’s language. Each component of daily life is a challenge, a new test. A Syrian journalist who has found refuge in Europe said: “I am nothing here. I must restart from scratch, rebuild everything, even my own identity.”