Biographies of the speakers at the Exile Media Forum 2025

Katerina Abramova
Katerina Abramova is the Head of Communications and deputy CEO at Meduza — the largest remaining independent Russian news outlet published in both Russian and English. She also oversees Meduza’s crowdfunding and fundraising efforts. Before joining Meduza, Katerina Abramova worked at one of Russia’s largest charitable foundations and managed various cultural projects.

Sharif Amiry
Sharif Amiry is an Afghan journalist with more than 16 years of experience in war reporting and documentaries. He was a former senior correspondent at TOLOnews TV. He is now Head of News Gathering at Amu TV in exile.

Brigitte Baetz
Brigitte Baetz is a free-lance journalist based in Cologne. In particular, she covers media topics, hosting above all the broadcast @mediasres from Deutschlandfunk (German Public Radio) and the podcast Nach Redaktionsschluss.

Natalia Belikova
Natalia Belikova is a trained international lawyer with over 15 years of expertise in media development, including roles within the United Nations and OSCE. Since 2020, Natalia Belikova leads International Cooperation sections at the Press Club Belarus.

Masha Borzunova
Masha Borzunova is an award-winning freelance journalist based in Berlin. She currently works with ZDF and ARTE, hosting the programme Masha on Russia. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Masha Borzunova fled her home city of Moscow and was later designated a “foreign agent” by the Russian government.

Jan Braathu
Jan Braathu (Norway) is the sixth OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, appointed in December 2024. He previously led OSCE Missions to Serbia (2021–24) and Kosovo (2016–20), and served as Norway’s Ambassador to Kosovo and Albania, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Earlier, he served postings at the Royal Norwegian Embassy to the Court of St. James’s, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.

Alexenia Dimitrova
Alexenia Dimitrova is an award-winning journalist and lecturer on open-source intelligence. She is a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and a shared Pulitzer award holder with ICIJ team for their work on The Panama Papers. She is the author of five non-fiction books and two manuals on journalism.

Esther Dorn-Fellermann
Esther Dorn-Fellermann has been a project manager at DW Akademie in Bonn for over 10 years. She is committed to freedom of expression and access to information. Esther Dorn-Fellermann has a PhD in media studies and contributes her academic expertise to the Displacement and Dialogue Asia program by consulting and supporting the study on resilience factors of exile media, written by Karen Williams and Sandy Soe.

Sara Elkhalili
Sara Elkhalili is Senior Media Development Manager at Thomson Reuters Foundation. Her work addresses how newsrooms can integrate AI solutions strategically, responsibly and ethically, bringing in two decades of academic, newsroom, and AI-driven tech startup experience.

Eva Garcke
Eva Garcke is a project manager in DW Akademie’s Displacement and Dialogue Asia program. Her work focuses on strengthening inclusive media landscapes by amplifying the voices of refugees and migrants across Asia. Previously, she has coordinated support projects for exiled journalists from Afghanistan.

Lev Gershenzon
Lev Gershenzon is a linguist and IT-manager, the former head of Yandex.News, and co-founder of Detectum, a search engine developer. He is also founder and head of The True Story, an independent news aggregator.

Jodie Ginsberg
Jodie Ginsberg is the CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists, a global non-profit organization that promotes press freedom and defends journalists worldwide. A journalist by profession, Jodie Ginsberg previously led the media development organization Internews Europe and the charity Index on Censorship.

Amal Habani
Amal Habani is a writer, journalist, and women’s rights activist. She writes about change, modernisation, freedom, and democracy. She is co-founder of the Freedom Bells Newspaper (2008), the AlJareed a Newspaper (2010), and the Sudanese Journalists Network. In 2018 the Committee to Protect Journalists awarded her the International Freedom of Expression Award.

Julia Idler-Poppe
Julia Idler-Poppe is a Senior Policy Advisor at the German Federal Ministry of the Interior. Effectively combating transnational repression is one of her main tasks in this role.

Gábor Kardos
Gábor Kardos is Cofounder and CEO of Magyar Jeti, the Hungarian publisher of independent news portal 444.hu, the pop-science magazine Qubit and the fact checker site Lakmusz. He has comprehensive CEE (Central and Eastern Europe) experience in transformative media strategies, digital advertising, reader revenues and cross-border institutional collaborations.

Rose Kimani
Rose Kimani is a project manager in international media development focusing on media viability. She co-authored DW Akademie’s global State of Media Development report and manages research on media development practice across various world regions.

Iryna Khalip
Iryna Khalip is a prominent Belarusian investigative journalist. After being held as a political prisoner in her home country, she has been living in exile in Montenegro since 2020. She continues reporting for Novaya Gazeta Europe and international media, exposing corruption and human rights abuses in Belarus despite years of persecution and arrests.

Naveeda Khoshbo
Naveeda Khoshbo is a journalist at the Afghanistan International’s London newsroom. Previously she worked with Shamshad TV, TOLOnews, and the Pajhwok news agency.

Hagen Lindner
Hagen Lindner is a certified security professional who has worked as a trainer, consultant, and ambassador for digital safety and secure communication since 2016. He focuses on helping protect the work of journalists, NGOs, non-profit organisations, and human rights defenders.

Basma Mostafa
Basma Mostafa is an award-winning Egyptian journalist. Now in exile in Berlin, she is a co-founder of Law and Democracy Support Foundation e.V., where she serves as Program Director, leading work on transnational repression, press freedom, and protection of exiled journalists.

Lotfullah Najafizada
Lotfullah Najafizada is an Afghan journalist and the founder and CEO of Amu TV, a Washington-DC based international media outlet for Afghanistan. Prior to that, he led Afghanistan’s then largest news channel TOLOnews TV (2009–2021).

Eva Nemela
Eva Nemela is a member of the Executive Board of Körber-Stiftung. Before her appointment in 2025, she headed the Department of Aging and Demographics and managed the KörberHaus in Hamburg-Bergedorf. She serves on the boards of the German Children and Youth Foundation, the German Foundation for Musical Life, the Foundation for Civic Engagement in Bergedorf, and the Herbert and Elsbeth Weichmann Foundation.

Anja Osterhaus
Anja Osterhaus is the Executive Director of Reporters without Borders (RSF) Germany. She held leadership positions in international civil society organisations such as Oxfam and Transparency International and has lived in Berlin, Brussels and Mexico.

Tobore Ovuorie
Tobore Ovuorie is a multi-award-winning investigative journalist and the 2021 Deutsche Welle Freedom of Speech Laureate. She exposes human rights abuses, corruption, and systemic failures. Her acclaimed work inspired the Netflix film Òlòtūré, bringing global attention to the issues she exposes.

Christoph Plate
Christoph Plate is a political analyst and media expert. Having worked as a correspondent, reporter and editor in Europe, Africa and the Middle East for 25 years, he started working for the Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAS) in 2017. Since September 2023 he is based in Sofia, directing the KAS Media Programme for South Eastern Europe.

Nazeeha Saeed
Nazeeha Saeed is a Bahraini journalist based in Germany. Her work focuses on human rights, politics and gender. She has won several awards, including the Johann-Philipp-Palm Award for Freedom of Speech and Press in 2014 and the Heikal Award for Arab Journalism in 2021. She is also a gender journalism trainer.

Maria Savushkina
Maria Savushkina, a Belarusian journalist and media manager in exile, has over 20 years of experience in media. She is founder and director of The Free Media Centre NGO, registered in Berlin in 2024. The NGO is dedicated to supporting exile media, countering propaganda, and promoting freedom of expression.

Nick Slater
Nick Slater is the Senior Project Manager for the Thomson Reuters Foundation’s programme of work supporting Russian and Belarusian independent media in exile across Central and Eastern Europe. Having studied Russian and French at university, Nick Slater began working across Russia, Central Asia, and the Middle East before moving into the charity sector in the UK. After four years of work in LGBTQ+ advocacy and inclusion in the UK and globally, Nick completed a Masters in Human Rights Law, focusing on areas including refugee law, equality law, LGBTQ+ rights, and the rights of minority groups.

Sandy Soe
Sandy Soe is a Monitoring and Evaluation specialist with over 17 years of experience in humanitarian aid, community development, media development, and peacebuilding. She supports evidence-based learning in complex, conflict-prone, and post-coup contexts in Myanmar. She co-authored the study on resilience factors of exile media on behalf of DW Akademie.

Alexey Terekhov
Alexey Terekhov is a media development expert with 20 years of experience in journalism, including ten years at Internews. He has supported independent media in Eastern Europe and in exile through newsroom transformations, sustainable business development, and most recently the integration of AI tools into editorial workflows.

Karen Williams
Karen Williams is a media expert with over 20 years of global experience in conflict journalism. She has led training courses and research projects in Asia and Africa, authored publications on war, human rights and media. She co-authored the study on resilience factors of exile media on behalf of DW Akademie.

Steffen Wurzel
Steffen Wurzel is a radio correspondent at Deutschlandfunk’s parliamentary office in Berlin. Before he was a junior correspondent at ARD’s radio office in Istanbul, Turkey (2010–2011) and one of ARD’s China correspondents in Shanghai (2016–2021).

Nino Zhizhilashvili
Nino Zhizhilashvili is one of Georgia’s leading political journalists, anchor at TV Formula, and dean of the Caucasus School of Media. With nearly 30 years of experience, she is known for her independence, sharp criticism of those in power, and dedication to training the next generation of journalists.

Viera Zuborova
Viera Zuborova is the director of CORRECTIV.Exile, a special section of the CORRECTIV media house, where she is responsible for leading efforts to support journalists in exile. She specialises in populism, extremism, social movements, political communication, and hate speech research. Since 2015, Viera has been a regular columnist at the online newspaper Aktuality.SK, Visegrad Insight, and works as a political analyst for various media in Central Europe.