How Foreign Repressive Governments Target Women Journalists in the West

Event Overview

In the last five years the CFWIJ’s Women Press Freedom initiative has documented an escalation of attacks and threats to journalists living in foreign countries including Canada, United States, UK, Australia and Europe.

This funnels into a larger international issue that impacts hundreds of journalists, activists who have irked the likes of dictators and anti-democratic states around the world. The spill of these threats impact million in diaspora communities living in several western countries including Canada that have become home to these communities.

In our research, we have identified that the main actors targeting women and 2SLGBTQI+ journalists are also the same entities attacking global human rights advocates, civil society members, and diaspora communities. These include major abusers such as Iran, China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia, as well as other influential international oppressors like India, Pakistan, Turkey, Brazil, Mexico, Egypt, and Venezuela.

This roundtable is organized in partnership with the Coalition For Women In Journalism

Location

Event Speakers:

Kiran Nazish - Lead Organizer

Founding director of the Coalition For Women In Journalism and seasoned journalist, Kiran has reported on conflicts, human rights and press freedom issues across the Middle East, South Asia, and Latin America. Her leadership at CFWIJ has been instrumental in advocating for the safety and rights of women in media.

Dan Stanton - Lead Organizer

Daniel Stanton, a former executive manager at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), now serves at the University of Ottawa's Professional Development Institute. Stanton has become a prominent voice on the issue of transnational repression and is an active member of the Foreign Interference Commission. He is also a strong advocate for press freedom, particularly focusing on the protection and rights of women journalists.

Masih Alinejad - Lead Speaker, Iranian Dissident and President of the World Liberty Congress

Masih Alinejad is an Iranian-American journalist, a women’s rights campaigner, and the author of the best-selling memoir The Wind in My Hair. In 2023, Time named Alinejad as one of the women of the year and was elected President of the World Liberty Congress. She is one of the most prominent and vocal figures challenging the Islamic Republic of Iran. The New York Times has described Masih as “The woman whose hair frightens Iran.” Masih was born in a tiny village in the north of Iran. As a teenager, she was arrested and jailed for producing a student newspaper. She became a parliamentary journalist and worked for a number of reformist newspapers in Tehran. However, her articles frequently landed her in trouble. In 2014, she launched the My Stealthy Freedom campaign against compulsory hijab, which became the largest civil disobedience movement in the history of the Islamic Republic. Today, Masih continues to write and host Tablet, a satirical weekly show on VOA. She has been honored with several awards, including sharing the 2022 Oxi Courage Award with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy; the 2022 Washington Institute’s Statesman-Scholar Award, and the American Jewish Committee’s Moral Courage Award.

Marie Lamensch - Program and Outreach Coodinator, Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies

Marie Lamensch is the Coordinator of Program and Outreach at the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies at Concordia University. Marie’s research and policy interests are international security and human rights; mass atrocity prevention; gendered disinformation, violent extremism and online hate; emerging technologies, transnational repressions, and digital authoritarianism.  She also writes for Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) and is affiliated to the Observatoire de géopolitique & Observatoire des conflits multidimensionnels at the Chaire Raoul Dandurand. She has a Bachelor’s degree in History (Concordia University) and a Master’s degree in Conflict, Security and Development (King’s College London department of War Studies).

Brendan de Caires - Executive Director of PEN Canada

Brendan de Caires is Executive Director of PEN Canada, a nonprofit that celebrates literature, defends freedom of expression and helps exiled writers to establish new lives in Canada.

Arzu Yildiz - Legal investigative journalist

Arzu Yildiz was a leading legal investigative journalist in Turkey before Erdogan began his purge against the media in the country. It was threats and raids targeting Arzu, that drove her out of the country. Even while living in exile in Canada, Arzu has received threats and physical attacks. In 2022, she was put on the hit list by Erdogan, and shortly after someone broke into her home. CFWIJ has supported her during this time and raised awareness with several agencies in Canada to offer protection to her. At the roundtable, she will be sharing details of how she was targeted.

Yana Gorokhovskaia - Research Director of Strategy and Design, Freedom House

Yana Gorokhovskaia is the Research Director for Strategy and Design at Freedom House, where she leads work on transnational repression and global freedom. Her most recent research reports include A Light That Cannot Be Extinguished: Exiled Journalism and Transnational Repression (2023), Addressing Transnational Repression on Campuses in the United States (2024),  Defending Democracy in Exile (2022), Still Not Safe: Transnational Repression in 2023 (2023), and The Mounting Damage of Flawed Elections and Armed Conflict (2024). Her analysis has been published in Foreign Affairs, The Guardian, The Washington Post, Politico, Journal of Democracy, Just Security, Post-Soviet Affairs, PS: Political Science and Politics, Russian Politics, Democratization, and International Migration. Yana holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of British Columbia and was a postdoctoral scholar at Columbia University until 2019.

Rachel Pulfer - Journalists For Human Rights

Rachel Pulfer, President of Journalists for Human Rights, has been instrumental in evacuating and relocating journalists globally. At the roundtable, she will discuss the challenges exiled journalists face in Canada.