Stories
Story
Aslı Ceren Aslan
A journalist and writer whose work addresses press freedom, censorship, imprisonment, exile, gender inequality and freedom of expression.
Story
Isa Bazyar
A writer speaking about censorship, exile and the pressure placed on family members across borders.
Lives under pressure
These stories show how digital repression is experienced in everyday life: in what people can publish, who they can speak to, how families are pressured, how exile is shaped, and how fear follows people beyond national borders.
Digital repression is not only a matter of blocked websites, hacked accounts or monitored phones. It changes relationships, work, movement, memory and speech. It can make a person hesitate before sending a message, publishing a poem, joining a protest, contacting family or telling the truth about what has happened.
The stories gathered here focus on that human reality.
They include accounts of censorship, imprisonment, forced exile, online harassment, smear campaigns, family pressure, surveillance, platform control and the long reach of states beyond their own borders.
Why these stories matter
Repression often works by isolating people and making their experiences seem private, confusing or impossible to prove. Telling these stories helps make those patterns visible.
Each story connects personal experience to wider methods of control: how governments and their supporters silence writers, journalists, artists, activists and communities — and how people continue to speak, publish, organise and remember despite the risks.
