220 journalists are now in prison across the world
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| The Jordanian writer and journalist Tayseer Nazmi lives in the street down town Amman since 26 March 2009 |
220 journalists are now in prison across the world
Annual survey by the Committee to Protect Journalists shows China and Iran have most journalists in jail
Al-Jazeera journalist Peter Greste awaiting sentence in Cairo in
June 2014. Photo: EPA/KHALED ELFIQI Photograph: KHALED ELFIQI/EPA
Wednesday 17 December
2014 09.37 GMT
More
journalists are in jail across the world at present than a year ago.According to the Committee to
Protect Journalists (CPJ), 220 journalists are in prison, an
increase of nine from 2013.
It is
the second-highest number of imprisoned journalists since CPJ started its
annual census in 1990, and highlights a resurgence of authoritarian governments
in countries such as China, Ethiopia, Burma and Egypt.
China’s
use of anti-state charges and Iran’s revolving door policy in imprisoning
reporters, bloggers, editors and photographers earned the two countries the
dubious distinction of being the world’s worst and second worst jailers of
journalists, respectively.
Together,
China and Iran are holding a third of journalists jailed globally. The 44
journalists in Chinese jails, up from 32 the previous year, reflects the
pressure that the country’s president, Xi Jinping, has exerted on media, lawyers,
dissidents and academics to toe the government line. Twenty-nine of the
journalists behind bars in China were held on anti-state charges.
In
Iran, the administration of its president, Hassan Rouhani, has maintained repressive
measures against the press. This year, Iranian authorities were holding 30
journalists in jail, down from 35 in 2013.
The
other eight on the list of the top 10 worst jailers of journalists are Eritrea,
Ethiopia, Vietnam, Syria, Egypt, Burma, Azerbaijan and
Turkey.
Turkey, which was the world’s worst jailer in
2012 and 2013, released dozens of journalists this year, bringing to seven the
number of journalists behind bars on the date of CPJ’s census.
However,
on 14 December, Turkey detained five more journalists
and accused them of conspiring against the Turkish state.
In
Eritrea, the authorities are holding 23 journalists, all without charge, and
have refused to disclose any details of the prisoners’ health or whereabouts (see this report from last week).
A state
crackdown in Ethiopia on independent publications and bloggers more than
doubled the number of journalists imprisoned there to 17 from seven the
previous year, prompting several journalists to flee into exile.
Among
the journalists in jail in Egypt is the al-Jazeera English staffer Peter Greste, an
Australian who formerly reported for the BBC. In June 2014, he was sentenced to
a seven-year jail term with two colleagues for “falsifying news and having a
negative impact on overseas perceptions of the country”.
CPJ’s
research also revealed a number of other disturbing details:
- Worldwide, 132 journalists, or 60%
of the total, were jailed on anti-state charges such as subversion or
terrorism. That is far higher than any other type of charge, such as
defamation or insult.
- Some 20% (45 in total) of the
journalists imprisoned globally were being held with no charge disclosed.
- Online journalists accounted for
more than half, or 119, of the imprisoned journalists; 83 worked in print,
15 in radio, and 14 in television.
- Roughly one-third, or 67, of the journalists in jail around the world were freelancers, around the same proportion as in 2013.
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