In times of international diplomatic tensions, journalism suffers the consequences. Governments are using the role of foreign correspondents abroad as a tool for diplomacy games and retaliation each year.

China attempted to stifle journalists last year by barring them from carrying out their reporting work to the point of forcing them to leave the country. The Foreign Correspondents' Club of China had reported that at least 20 foreign reporters have been expelled or forced to leave China due to government intimidation tactics to prevent foreign journalists from reporting in the country for their international outlets. China denied these allegations, but the Committee to Protect Journalists argued that China's tactics against foreign journalists demonstrate the regime has "something to hide."

**Senior BBC journalist, Sarah Rainsford**

The Russian regime, too, seems to use similar tactics, and a foreign correspondent is also facing the consequences. In 2000, BBC journalist Sarah Rainsford moved to Moscow for the first time. 21 years later, the Russian government ordered her expulsion from the country. "Being expelled from Russia, a country I've lived in for almost one-third of my life - and reported for years - is devastating", Rainford wrote on Twitter in response to the Russian government's decision not to renew her visa. Russia's state-funded broadcaster Rossiya-24 broke the news presenting it as an answer to alleged UK refusals to issue visas to Russian journalists and threats from Ofcom (the Office of Communications of the UK government) that it could strip RT (the Russian state-funded broadcaster) of its license. According to the Guardian, the UK Embassy in Moscow denied any discrimination against Russian journalists in the UK and described Rainsford's expulsion as "retrograde" and "unjustified."

Rainford, whose visa will expire at the end of this month, told BBC Radio 4 that she was surprised by this development: “I wasn’t expecting this to happen. (...) There were clear signs for Russian media – there have been serious problems recently for Russian independent journalists – but until now, the foreign press had been somehow shielded from all of that. This is a clear sign that things have changed". Moscow's BBC correspondent interpreted the Russian government's decision not to allow her to remain in the country as "a really bad sign of the state of affairs in Russia, another downturn in the relationship between Russia and the world, and a sign that Russia is increasingly closing in on itself.”

According to the New York Times, this is "the first time in years that a high-profile Western journalist has been publicly forced out of the country as part of a political dispute". The most recent case of expulsion of a foreign correspondent reflects the current situation facing foreign journalists in authoritarian countries. Foreign correspondents working in these countries are at a higher risk of being used by authoritarian governments to exert pressure on a political level and manipulate international diplomacy.

Journalists who work in countries with authoritarian regimes must report objectively while also struggling with direct and indirect threats from governments that create uncertainty as to whether in a month or a year from now, they will be able to continue doing their jobs. In times when governments use journalism as a proxy for political repercussions or as a tool to play games in diplomacy, it serves as a reminder that media and press organizations around the world have a responsibility to stand up and protect those journalists and foreign correspondents against intimidation and exploitation.

(Photo Credits here)