Calendar

Cash bar cocktail hour begins 6 p.m. Dinner and gala begin at 7 p.m. (For those on deadline, program likely to start around 7:30 p.m. as dinner proceeds.) Business attire. Cocktail or sun dresses appropriate for women. Tie optional for men, but no shorts please!

Getting Out Is Just the First Step: What Refugees Must Go Through To Reach Safety And Then Face In Exile

September 2, 2025 at 1:00 pm ET

Register HERE.

Each year dozens, if not hundreds, of journalists are forced to flee their home countries because of threats to them and their families.

Just getting refugee status can be a demeaning and exhausting process. Once status is granted, the refugee and family face another issue: How to survive in their new country. Many countries limit the types of work allowed to people with refugee status. Too many journalists and other professionals are relegated to work that does not allow them to prosper or from the host country to benefit from their skills and talents.

Join us for an in-depth discussion that looks at what leads people to flee their home country and what issues they face once they are safely out. The panelists will also discuss what the local journalism communities can do to help these people.

PANELISTS

Taha Siddiqui is a Pakistani investigative journalist who has been living in exile in France since 2018. In Pakistan, he reported for leading international media such as the New York Times, the Guardian and France24. He had to flee his homeland after surviving a kidnapping and assassination attempt. Pakistani army officials threatened him, hoping to censor his reporting on military abuse in the country. In 2019, he was informed by French and American authorities that his name was on a Pakistani state-sanctioned kill List

In Paris he founded the DISSIDENT club, a bar where dissidents of the world meet. He recently published his first book – an autobiography as a graphic novel called Dissident Club, named after his bar which documents his journey from growing up in an Islamist family to becoming an atheist and his fight for freedom of expression and religion.

Kami Rice has been working as a freelance writer and editor for years.

She is also the co-founder of Allied Shepherd, which works to help endangered Afghans seeking safety in other countries.

Based in Europe, she travels the world widely, with a particular interest in how policies and geopolitical maneuvering affect regular people. Anthrow Circus is a mixed media collection crafted by artists and journalists working as creative anthropologists to examine culture and society.

Moderator

Jessica Jerreat is an award-winning journalist with nearly 25 years’ experience in local and international news and press freedom for organizations including the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists and The Times of London. She joined the Voice of America March 2020 and currently holds the enviable title of Press Freedom Editor.

Jerreat is a plaintiff in an ongoing lawsuit against the Trump Administration over its policy of closing the US Agency for Global Media, the parent agency for VOA.

A no-agenda, no holds barred get together sponsored by the SPJ International Community. Just a chance to meet and chat.

Sign up HERE.

The murders of investigative journalist Regina Martínez and photojournalist Rubén Espinosa, about 10 years ago became the inspiration for “Cocodrilos,” the debut fictional feature film by director J. Xavier Velasco. The film is a thriller that looks at the cost of seeking the truth where collusion between authorities and organized crime is the main threat to people’s right to be informed.

Join the SPJ International Community on Sept. 23 at 6:00 pm ET as we talk with Velasco about his film and his views on the importance of independent and free media.

Those signing up for the webinar will receive a free link to view the movie during the week before our session.

Sign up HERE.

Join the Press Freedom Team on Tuesday, October 7 at 6 p.m. for an upcoming reception at the National Press Club!

National Press Club members and Press Freedom Center staff will be joined by Alsu Kurmasheva, who will discuss her work as a press freedom advocate, and provide updates on recent press freedom developments in Europe and Russia.

This reception is designed to bring the Club community together and celebrate the vital work of the Press Freedom Center. Don’t miss a chance to learn more about how the Press Freedom Center is advancing press freedom initiatives through personal engagement and meaningful intervention – and how Club members can support and amplify that work.

Book tickets HERE.

Alsu Kurmasheva is an award-winning journalist and editor at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), where she has reported extensively on cultural and human rights issues in Russia’s Volga-Ural region. She first joined RFE/RL in 1998 as a radio program moderator and has since built a career covering the experiences of ethnic minorities in Russia. Her reporting has also focused on gender issues, with in-depth investigations into domestic violence and women’s rights.

In October 2023, Kurmasheva was detained in Russia and charged with spreading “false” information about the Russian military, a charge linked to her alleged role in distributing a book featuring accounts from Russians opposed to the invasion of Ukraine. Held for more than nine months, in July 2024, Alsu Kurmasheva was sentenced to six and a half years in prison. In August 2024, she was released as part of a prisoner exchange that also saw the return of fellow American journalist Evan Gershkovich.

Following her release from detention in Russia, Alsu Kurmasheva has emerged as a vocal advocate for press freedom, drawing on her own experience of imprisonment to highlight the risks journalists face in authoritarian regimes.

Last year, shortly after her release from Russian prison, Alsu was interviewed by the SPJ International Community along with Daniel Fenster, who was held by the Myanmar government in 2021. The two talked about how they dealt with their imprisonment for “doing journalism” and why so many authoritarian governments fear free and independent news reporting.

You can view the interview below.

Did you know?

• 162 journalists have been killed in the line of duty in 2023-2024.
• 85 % of cases of journalists’ killings since 2006 are still unresolved or abandoned.
• The number of women journalists killed in 2022 was at its highest level since 2017, with 10 cases.
• Almost half of the deaths took place in countries experiencing armed conflict, compared with 38% in the previous two years.

Read more about the day HERE.

Come celebrate the holiday season with your fellow members of the Washington, D.C., Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. We’ll also toast the near-arrival of the 234^th anniversary of the ratification of the Bill of Rights, our First Amendment birthdate.

We will provide the great New Orleans-style food — you just need to pay for anything you want to drink from the cash bar.

The Ragtime Restaurant is a 2–4-minute walk from the Court House Orange Line Metro station. You can’t get much more convenient than that.

We are aiming to grow our membership in these days when a strong, united voice from journalists committed to seeking truth and reporting it to the public is more important than ever. Bring a colleague who you think would be interested in joining.

This will be a great opportunity for chapter members to connect/re-connect, and for you to meet prospective members who may be our guests and tell them what membership means to you and why they should be part of our chapter and our mission. Spread the cheer, but also spread your enthusiasm for SPJ.

Sign up HERE to let us know you are coming.

Please note that you should respond using the form on the link above so we have your name and email address for any updates.