The Forbidden Stories venture was envisioned by Laurent Richard, a French investigative journalist and filmmaker in 2015, after the January 7, 2015,
Charlie Hebdo shooting in which 12 people were killed and 11 others were injured—all journalists and cartoonists—by members of terrorist group
Al-Qaeda's branch in Yemen. The offices of
Charlie Hebdo were near Richard's workplace. that allows threatened journalists to upload their work and secure their data and information. Forbidden Stories, which was founded by Laurent Richard, allows journalists to continue the investigative reporting of "silenced" journalists and to unveil their stories to a wide audience. The purpose of "Forbidden Stories" was to "deter would-be attacks on journalists by backing up their work, and to publicize murders and disappearances of colleagues such as Caruana Galizia." Forbidden Stories continues the "work of killed, imprisoned, or otherwise incapacitated journalists." Richard said
The Daphne Project was modeled after similar initiatives in the past involving the murder of other journalists, such as
The Arizona Project, in which 38 American journalists completed the investigative work of
Don Bolles following his 1976 murder. In 2015 colleagues of
Khadija Ismayilova of the
Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) continued her work on "the corruption and tax evasion of the ruling family in Baku" through The Khadija Project, after she was imprisoned in Azerbaijan. Associação Brasileira de Jornalismo Investigativo (ABRAJI), a Brazilian investigative journalism NGO, carried on the work of
Tim Lopes who was burned alive for his work on drug trafficking in
Rio de Janeiro in 2002. == Stories ==