Our mission
Forbidden Stories is an international network of journalists whose mission, unique in the world, is to continue the investigations of other reporters who have been silenced.
All over the world, journalists are imprisoned, abducted and murdered, depriving millions of people of information of public interest. This is what Forbidden Stories strives to prevent.
Our nonprofit organization, unique in the world, protects the work of threatened journalists and pursues the investigations of reporters who have been silenced.
In the face of increasingly organized enemies of the press, we have made collaboration our modus operandi. Because we are stronger together, we activate our international network of journalists to take up these forbidden investigations and disseminate them worldwide.
We want to send out a clear message : killing a reporter will always be counter-productive. Why kill a journalist when dozens of others are ready to pursue their work? What some want to hide will be amplified.
Forbidden Stories aims to ensure access to information of public interest, while at the same time deterring crimes and violence against journalists. It is vital for our democracies that a counterbalancing force like the press can investigate and expose environmental crimes, corruption, surveillance, organized crime, disinformation, and human rights violations.
Killing the journalist won’t kill the story.
Our history
Forbidden Stories was founded in 2017 by Laurent Richard who, after years of covering conflict zones and dictatorial regimes, became convinced of the need to provide a journalistic response to crimes against journalists.