‘I watch my back’: Spike in BBC World Service journalists working in exile

It is thought that there are 310 BBC World Service journalists working in captivity, almost double the number since 2020.

The images, released for the first time away of World Press Freedom Day, reflect hit reprisals in Russia, Afghanistan, and Ethiopia.

Editors from other countries, including Iran, have lived overseas for more than a decade.

Some face jail words, death threats and intimidation, both on and offline.

The BBC World Service producer, Liliane Landor, says that the only means they can continue reporting is to be forced to leave their homes. The rise in the number of journalists in captivity is “extremely worrying for media freedom,” said one journalist.

The BBC essentially kicked out of Afghanistan when the Taliban took command in August 2021. Female employees were prohibited from working, and their female coworkers were also threatened.

In 2022, after its complete- level invasion of Ukraine, Russia introduced a new censorship legislation, meaning anyone criticising the war had been prosecuted. ” I’m calling a battle, a war, and for that I may be simply jailed”, says Nina Nazarova, a journalist for BBC Russian, which has moved its Moscow staff to Latvia.

In April this year, Nina’s partner, BBC Russian journalist Ilya Barabanov, was labelled a “foreign broker”, accused of” spreading false information” and opposing the battle. He and the BBC disagree with this and are contesting it in court.

Additionally, journalists in Myanmar and Ethiopia have experienced increased strain, which has made them unable to report easily.

The Committee to Protect Journalists ‘ Jodie Ginsburg reports that the number of exiled editors receiving financial and legal assistance has increased by 225 % in the last three decades.

The number of editors in prison is nearly at a record level, she adds, and the number of journalists killed has not been since 2015.

Systems like Russia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia are exceedingly determined to control the narrative both inside and outside their nations, she claims.

” I watch my back”, says BBC Persian editor Jiyar Gol. He claims to be looking for an escape way when he enters the room right then. ” My home has a lot of security cameras in it. I was warned it would be wise to change my sister’s school”.

Jiyar has n’t been to Iran since 2007. When his mother died he could n’t go to her funeral. He managed to travel across the country to attend her tomb.

He has become more mindful since his family passed away from cancer four years ago, though. ” If anything happened to me, what will happen to my child? That’s something that’s actually in the back of my mind all the time”, he says.

” The Iranian government has grown bolder”, he adds. They are subject to stringent sanctions, and because they are isolated, they do n’t care what the international community thinks of them.

A BBC Persian staff member was stabbed in the leg outside his London home in March, according to British counter-terrorism authorities, who recently issued a warning about the growing threat to BBC Persian team members living in the country.

Ten BBC Persian employees recently learned of their absence’s sentence, which included a time in jail. After attackers leaked data from the Egyptian judiciary, they discovered it.

Recently, the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has accused BBC Persian team of inciting violence, love speech and human rights abuses.

One World Service blogger in Africa, who spoke unidentified for fear of aggravating foreign leaders, claims that his greatest concern would be becoming asynchronous if his country’s government refused to renew his card.

For Shazia Haya, from BBC Pashto, living in exile is laced with sadness. When the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan, leaving her kids and brother in Kabul, she was forced to flee to the UK by herself. She fears that their job will be punished by the Taliban.

” The night I left home, at around 02: 00, I do n’t know why but I could n’t hug my younger brother. And I’m regretting that”, she says. ” I’m completely around, but they’re in a kind of incarceration”.