September brought new voices to Berlin: our fellows met Reporters Without Borders, one of them published a major AfD story for CORRECTIV, and our coalition released two papers in one week.
Meet our fellows
Our temporary relocation programme with ProtectDefenders.eu is in full swing, although one of our fellows has completed their three months and now returned. Here are our other fellows:
Bülent Kılıç is one of Türkiye’s best-known photojournalists, whose work for AFP has been honoured at the World Press Photo awards. Detained while covering Istanbul Pride in 2021, he won a Constitutional Court ruling in December 2025 finding his rights were violated.
Can Öztürk is a journalist from Türkiye and a familiar first contact for fellows as they arrive in Berlin.
Our third fellow, an award-winning journalist from Russia covering the war, gender-based violence and propaganda, is in Berlin to rest and keep working safely. For her protection, we are not naming her.
Meetings and networking
September has been a busy month and we organized a few networking events for our fellows. This month, they met with RSF Germany and CORRECTIVE (-where one of our fellow is temporarily contributing, but more on that below) to discuss collaboration options and the situation of journalism in authoritarian states.
CORRECTIV: young Turkish-heritage Berliners and the AfD
Ahead of Berlin’s 20 September election, Can interviewed 110 Turkish-heritage Berliners in Neukölln, Kreuzberg, Wedding and Spandau. Many had left the SPD or CDU, and several planned to vote AfD — driven by rents, a longing for order and nostalgia for an older Berlin, and sure the party would never target them. It is one of the most nuanced pieces of political reporting we’ve read this year, and exactly the kind of work we exist to protect.
👉 Read the article (in German): https://correctiv.org/aktuelles/afd/2026/09/18/junge-tuerkeistaemmige-vor-der-wahl-enttaeuscht-von-der-mitte-neugierig-auf-die-afd/
Coalition: two papers in one week
The Coalition Against Transnational Repression in Germany, which JAM co-founded, released an updated Policy Paper on 21 September, with recommendations under four pillars: Monitor, Respond, Support and Prevent (https://stop-transnational-repression.de/2025/04/14/policy-paper-tackling-transnational-repression-in-germany/). On 25 September it followed with a new Position Paper that puts the rights and protection needs of targeted people at the centre of Germany’s response to TNR (https://stop-transnational-repression.de/2026/09/25/new-coalition-position-paper-calls-for-a-human-rights-based-understanding-of-transnational-repression-in-germany/).
Also in September:
- A UN report on reprisals (16 September) raised a German case of an asylum-seeking human rights defender facing a Dublin transfer, and the UN Special Rapporteur on Russia presented a https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/country-reports/ahrc6360-nowhere-safe-exporting-rule-fear-beyond-borders-transnational.
- Coalition member Quarteera was declared an “undesirable organisation” by Russia (https://www.quarteera.de/de/about/undesirable/).
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