Journalism in Exile

Authoritarian regimes are uprooting increasing numbers of journalists. Tiffany

Lai and Megan Warren-Lister speak to the reporters living in this liminal state

After almost ten years working in investigative journalism, Andrey Zakharov began to notice he was no longer alone on Moscow’s streets. Gradually, the odd tailing car was replaced by full-blown harassment, with individuals following him and then hiding. He was under surveillance. But it was the attempts at concealment that troubled him most. “The hiding, that scared me,” he recalls. Having carried out various investigations, the espionage was a reminder that “if you are against Russia, they don’t want you there”. As a result, he had no choice but to leave. But this was not a matter of immigration.

Immigration, Zakharov says, implies a sense of permanence.

“I’m in exile, not an immigrant,” he explains. Forced to leave Russia two years ago, he dreams of one day returning to the leafy suburbs of St. Petersburg where he spent his childhood summers. For now, he has no choice except to work 3,000 miles away in Bulgaria. Being a journalist in exile is its own punishment, but for Afghan journalist Zahra Joya, exiled for the same amount of time, it’s also “the only weapon” available to raise awareness for those who remain in corrupt regimes. Named one of TIME’s Women of the Year in 2022, Joya bravely reported on stories of women feeing their homes as the Taliban took over Kabul.

What does journalism in exile look like today?

Zakharov and Joya are just two of many journalists in exile who feel a duty to the people they have left.

In recent years, the world has seen a sharp decline in journalistic safety in countries facing civil unrest, from Hong Kong and Myanmar, to Russia and Zimbabwe. Between 2020 and the end of 2021, UNESCO found that journalists were increasingly killed whilst covering protests, riots or demonstrations. In 2022, according to Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty, 67 journalists were killed globally. A Reuters report showed that 49 per cent of Middle Eastern and North African journalists in exile in Turkey admitted to having suicidal thoughts after escape.

Those who stay in their home countries face immediate danger and tough restrictions on reporting; those who leave face paranoia, loneliness and guilt. A double-edged sword of sorts, living in this journalistic purgatory takes a psychological toll. But, it also means that exiled journalists are even more motivated to keep going for those who couldn’t leave.

Leaving home

Those who have fed corrupt regimes are often called foreign agents, a metaphor for enemies of the state, Zakharov explains. In Russia, this is a classifcation attributed to all journalists forced to register abroad, and to avoid the media censorship in Russia that means “you cannot call a war, a war.” The law in question, introduced last March, carries a sentence of up to 15 years in prison for journalists in breach. Whilst foreign agent status might seem to confer a sense of freedom, it’s also something of a death knell. “It’s an instrument to force you to leave the country,” Zakharov says, fatly. In Russia, the classifcation means additional regulatory hoops to jump through, from fling extensive information about their personal fnances. More obligations mean more ways for the state to have purported justifcation for punishing you, he explains.

Kris Cheng, a journalist from Hong Kong exiled for the same amount of time as Zakharov, is familiar with the status of foreign agent. Following China’s crackdown on press freedom, he feels he and his family were left with little choice but to leave. For Cheng, who now lives in the UK, “once you’re an exiled person you’re a ‘foreign agent’” to the state. The term is a nebulous catchall in China that leaves those tarred with the label especially vulnerable to prosecution under the severe National Security Law (NSL). The law came into effect in 2020, an hour before Britain’s handover of Hong Kong, and has seen people prosecuted for anything from holding vigils to attending democracy marches.

The impact of exile

For many who leave, exile could mean a new life.

“I could, like in the [flm] Matrix, take a kind of blue pill,” says Zakharov. By this he means forget everything, live a private life and have a new career. “Maybe be a teacher,” he laughs. Prior to his time at the BBC, Zakharov worked as special correspondent for the RBK magazine where he published an investigation on Russian interference in the US election of 2016. Abandoning his long-standing passion wasn’t an option. Instead, he opted to embrace uncertainty. “I’d take the red one,” he says eagerly. “With the red pill you choose life. You choose adventures, and investigative journalism in my case,” Zakharov explains.

Moving to Bulgaria came with the price of anxiety about surveillance. He still keeps a watchful eye on the fgures who pass his apartment and cannot disclose the city in which he is based.

Despite being uprooted, journalism’s occupation of the online space means Zakharov was able to deliver content to existing audiences, and new ones. He currently works for himself, earning a living by publishing content on platforms like YouTube and Telegram, where he reaches up to 100,000 views with any given post.

Online platforms have been a lifeline for Violet Gonda. In 2002, she was banned from Zimbabwe by President Mugabe’s government after investigating allegations of corruption. Following his fall in 2017, she briefy went back to the country, but now reports on it from London. When she returned on a freelance basis “armed with only a cellphone”, Gonda was swiftly detained and threatened with deportation before returning to the UK. Working with sources in Zimbabwe, she now produces documentaries on WhatsApp, covering issues from local elections to waste mismanagement in Harare, the country’s capital. journalists have escaped. be plagues him. “The main psychological problem is waiting for something,” he says. “No one knew the war would last such a long time.”

On a crisp morning in London, where Zakharov stayed for six-months before moving to Bulgaria, he recalls seeing police on the pavement and feeling “an inner desire to cross the street”. Rationally, he knew they’d do nothing, but he couldn’t stop the bubbling paranoia that stems from his life in Russia where police “can arrest you and ruin your life”.

The thought that the war might never end also means he’s not sure he can return whilst Putin remains in power and even after that, he admits “it will still not be completely safe.”

Publishing articles online, Cheng also benefts from his digital position. “New technology has helped us monitor Hong Kong very closely, even with the time difference. The police in Hong Kong like to arrest people at 6am but that’s London’s 10pm, so I can cover it before other journalists are up,” he says.

Mental health in exile

Nevertheless, the sense of distance means isolation is inevitable. “The biggest problems are not to do with money or gathering information. They are psychological ones,” says Zakharov. Since leaving Zimbabwe, Gonda has been an advocate for the wellbeing of those exiled for similar reasons. “Journalists also get PTSD. No one ever talks about that,” she says. “People forget we’re humans. They think what we see doesn’t affect us.” As well as their lived experiences of trauma, anxieties persist even after

Cheng says his friends have had similar experiences. On 5 November 2022, when many in the UK were huddling up to friends in parks watching Bonfre Night displays, there were Hong Kongers who, for a split second, confused the explosions with the familiar sounds of tear gas canisters going off at protests. Cheng has also heard from others in the UK who have woken up in a cold sweat at 6am with “nightmares of getting arrested by the police”. Aside from fears about safety and ongoing surveillance, there is also a more existential sense of sadness that comes with existing in a liminal state, says Gonda. “All those years of dreaming of returning home, it takes its toll,” she explains.

New homes

For journalists in exile, home is often a site of confict, both literally and fguratively.

“I didn’t want to leave home,” Zakharov says. As an investigative journalist carrying out controversial work, he was always aware it was a possibility. “When you choose between jail and immigration… what else are you going to do?” When he was exiled, he was pushed by another entity (this time the BBC, not his nation state), to relocate to Riga, Latvia. But he chose to quit rather than work somewhere he had no ties. Instead he selected Bulgaria, where family resides. Though he feels lucky to have a base there, he wants to return back to Russia, his true home. The uncertainty of when this might

London-based documentary producer Gonda also doesn’t consider her new location home. “I’m still in Zimbabwe mentally and emotionally,” she explains. This sense of dislocation transcends nationality, and Afghan Joya agrees. “Mentally you’re [still] inside,” she says. For Aye Chan Naing, a Burmese journalist exiled for 25 years, this is also transgenerational. Chan Naing last saw Myanmar in 1988. Exiled after the 8888 Uprising, a bloody military coup with around 350 deaths, he continues to report on Myanmar news from Oslo, Norway. The distinguished journalist describes younger journalists asking him when they can go back to Myanmar - to which he typically responds: “Don’t think about it, just do your job…keep on fghting.”

Even home does not necessarily mean safety. The wide river and sprawling forest near Zakharov’s childhood “dacha” (a country escape near St Petersburg) may evoke a deep sense of nostalgia for him, but Moscow in particular symbolises the trauma of previous life. He says it “doesn’t belong to me anymore”. After being followed, culminating in a forced departure for the Bulgarian resident, returning home would require a reclamation of sorts. A kind of “recapture” in order to reestablish his sense of belonging. Quite literally, too – when he returns he’s determined to take the same

Andrey Zakharov

bus route he took when being followed to overcome the anxiety he associates with the journey, and his previous life.

Journalistic duty

One impetus for persisting with journalism in exile, despite a fractured sense of home, is a pervasive sense of journalistic obligation. “My responsibility is to fght – to do journalism,” Zakharov says. Being outside of the regime confers an additional sense of duty to those who remain. This is echoed by Joya, who recalls wanting to tell the world: “Don’t forget about Afghanistan”. After all, she says, Afghans only have the voice of the journalists in exile. Chan Naing is also cognisant of his liminal positioning and the platform it confers him. “We need to be brave enough to tell stories people don’t want to hear.”

To navigate this, Naing is aware that his job is to balance and double-check, a task that can sometimes be tricky when working with local sources. He explains: “Citizen journalists are often quite emotional and deeply aligned with the opposition.” Though complete disconnection is not possible, or sought after, “our role is to keep a high editorial standard and not get too involved with emotions and personal feelings,” he says.

Coping with exile and creating a community

For Zakharov, who has been seeing a Skype therapist for three years, professional therapeutic help is essential to coping with the trauma of life in exile. “Without this support, things would be very different,” he explains. He’s also conscious of the critical nature of journalism that’s focused on exposing the injustices of a governmental regime, and the toll this can take. “As a journalist in exile your work is to destroy the system – in opposition is creation,” he explains. To strike a better balance between the two, Zakharov has been contemplating how to exercise his own creative faculties, and though he’s adamant he’ll never leave journalism, a foray into part-time academic study is on his radar. Both psychology and history are on the cards, though he’s yet to commit. The one thing that’s clear is his determination to forge his own path in spite of the odds against him.

Beyond individual coping mechanisms, connections and networks are “so important” in maintaining mental health, Gonda explains. “Zimbabweans eat, breathe, sleep Zimbabwe,” she says, describing her perceived obligation to keep Zimbabweans informed. For Zakharov, the sense of community comes naturally. “Almost all journalists left Russia,” he explains, and with most in exile, Europe is dotted with communities.

For Chan Naing, there’s also professional value to the community who remain under home regimes.

“We cannot be who we are without people on the ground,” he says of his Myanmar colleagues. In exile, his reliance on source work means he frequently has to ask colleagues on location to take risks by capturing photos or gathering information.

You might think that being a journalist in exile would be the ultimate test of John Donne’s adage “no man is an island”, but thanks to the journalistic community’s strong bonds, Chan Naing endorses it.

“We are bridges and connections,” he says. Expressing gratitude for his colleagues, he explains that these relationships are not peripheral but integral to life in the liminal land of exile. After all, as Zakharov says, it’s an active and collective enterprise.

“Our responsibility is to fght and do journalism.”

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