CPJ reports a record number of journalists jailed in 2021 with China at the top of the list
The number of jailed reporters rose from 280 in 2020 to 293 this year with China, Myanmar and Egypt leading the way. For the first time, Hong Kong journalists are jailed for their work. At least 24 reporters have been killed this year, the latest in the Philippines.
Cairo (AsiaNews) – China, Myanmar. and Egypt are the three most dangerous countries in the world for journalists to practice their trade, easily arrested and persecuted for what they publish and report if it is unpopular with the local leaders, this according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a New York-based independent consortium
The number of jailed journalists increased by 13, from 280 in 2020 to 293 this year, a record.
For the third year in a row, Xi Jinping's China leads the pack with 50 journalists currently behind bars. That is the known figure, but the real number could be much higher.
In fact, the list does not include 11 people, not formal journalists, but jailed nonetheless for providing sensitive material to the dissident newspaper Epoch Times.
What is new this year is that Hong Kong journalists have also been arrested under Beijing’s infamous national security law, including those who worked for the pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper, which was forced to close.
In mainland China, where all forms of dissent are crushed, journalists are jailed on charges such as causing unrest or sowing discord.
At least a dozen people have been arrested for covering the Wuhan crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic without following the official version.
Myanmar comes in second place. Since the overthrow in a military coup of the democratically elected civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi, as many as 26 journalists have been jailed, the biggest increase in the world. None had been arrested the previous year.
Sources close to the CPJ report that many more journalists are in prison held incommunicado or simply missing.
Egypt is third with 25 journalists locked up in the country's prisons. The CPJ report notes that Egyptian authorities violate their own rules, which limit pre-trial detention to two years, by adding further charges to keep journalists inside longer
Another tool in Egypt’s repressive arsenal is the imposition of extreme conditions on journalists who have already served their sentence.
In fourth and fifth place we have Vietnam and Belarus, the last one also the last dictatorship in Europe. The top ten list is completed with Turkey, Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Iran.
“This is the sixth year in a row that CPJ has documented record numbers of journalists imprisoned around the world,” said CPJ executive director Joel Simon.
This “reflects two inextricable challenges – governments are determined to control and manage information, and they are increasingly brazen in their efforts to do so.”
The CPJ also reported the work-related death of at least 24 journalists in 2021 with India and Mexico at the top with four and three respectively.
The latest journalist to be murdered was Jesus Malabanan, 58, who was shot in the head yesterday in Calbayog, almost 500 km from Manila.
Employed by the Manila Standard, he also contributed to the Reuters agency’s Pulitzer Prize-winning series on President Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war in 2018.
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