The Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety, together with its partners, is organizing an official side event during the 59th session of the UN Human Rights Council: Freedom of Speech Under Threat: Voices of Exiled Journalists from Post-Soviet States
📅 Date & Time: June 20, 11 am.
📍 Location: Room XXV, Palais des Nations.
Across post-Soviet states, independent journalism is increasingly under attack. As regimes crack down on dissent, journalists are being forced into exile, stripped of their livelihoods, and targeted by legal, digital, and physical repression.
This side event brings together exiled journalists, human rights defenders, and international experts to shed light on the multi-layered threats to media freedom and to explore how cross-border repression is used to silence independent reporting. Panelists will share lived experiences, assess the effectiveness of existing protection mechanisms, and identify urgent gaps that must be addressed.
Speakers include:
🔹 Ekaterina Glikman – co-founder and first editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta Europe
🔹 Marina Ovsiannikova – journalist and political refugee, deputy chair of the Russian Democratic Club in France
🔹 Emin Huseynov – journalist, human rights defender, founder of the Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety
🔹 Alena Prykhodzka – journalist, member of the Belarusian Association of Journalists and the Press Club Belarus
Moderator:
🔹 Oleg Mikhajlov – Future Russia – Switzerland