Crises in Context: How Exiled Media Safeguard Information Across Borders

When press freedom is suppressed, exile media often remain the last source of independent information. Bringing together journalists from Iran, Syria, and Venezuela, the panel Crises in Context explores how political crises and processes of social transformation can be critically monitored and made visible from exile.

How can independent reporting succeed in exile when media in authoritarian contexts are subject to structural repression – or when a free press has never truly been able to emerge?
 

What role can journalism in exile play in establishing free and independent media ecosystems in the long term?

The event will be held in English.

Gabriela Ramirez (Venezuela)

Gabriela Ramirez is an investigative and multimedia journalist. She collaborates across borders to tell compelling stories that spotlight underrepresented communities. Covering stories from Venezuela’s political crisis to border violence in Europe and the impacts of climate change and deep-sea mining on coastal communities, she combines data-driven insights with human-centered storytelling, often through a gender lens. She is part of the Border Graves investigation team that uncovered 1015 unidentified migrant graves across Europe. She is also the Multimedia Editor at Unbias The News/Hostwriter, where she has worked on projects like The Sinking Cities Project and the Brain Waste Investigation. Her reporting has earned international recognition, including the European Press Prize, IJ4EU Impact Award, and the Lorenzo Natali Prize.

Maryam Mardani (Iran)

Maryam Mardani is a journalist from Iran. She lives in Berlin and has been working for the news platform Amal, Berlin since 2018. In 2013, she came to Germany for her doctoral research in English literature. In addition to her work as a journalist, she writes short stories and recently published the collection of stories “After the Silence” in Persian.

Koumay Al-Mulhem (Syria)

Koumay Al-Mulhem is a Syrian journalist based in Germany, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Khatt30.com, and Arabic editor-in-chief at MiCT – Media in Cooperation and Transition. He previously led the trilingual magazine Niqash.org, the Arabic platform Correspondents, and served as senior editor at the NIRIJ Investigative Journalism Network. Al Melhem also works with international media organizations as a media trainer.

Moderator: Christian Mihr

Christian Mihr is an international media policy expert. He served as Executive Director of Reporters Without Borders (RSF Germany) from 2012 to 2024 and worked as Managing Director Human Rights Impact and Deputy Secretary General at Amnesty International Germany between 2024 and 2025. He has now returned to RSF Germany as Managing Director for Policy and Strategy.

In addition to his role at RSF Germany, Mihr holds several advisory and oversight positions: he is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Leibniz Institute for Media Research Hans-Bredow-Institut, a member of the Communication and Information Committee of the German UNESCO Commission, a member of the Advisory Board of Transparency International Germany, and part of the Coordination Circle of the Forum for Human Rights.

Mihr studied journalism, Latin American studies, and political science at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt and the Universidad de Santiago de Chile. His professional experience has taken him to countries including Russia and Ecuador.