In four consecutive years, at least 250 journalists have been imprisoned globally. Authoritarian governments such as that of Xi JinPing, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Mohammed bin Salman, and Abdel Fattah el-sisi show no signs of letting up on the critical media.
According to an A CPJ special report by Elana Beiser, the number of journalists imprisoned globally for their work in 2019 remained near record highs, as China tightened its iron grip on the press and Turkey, having stamped out virtually all independent reporting, released journalists awaiting trial or appeal. Authoritarianism, instability, and protests in the Middle East led to a rise in the number of journalists locked up in the region — particularly in Saudi Arabia, which is now on par with Egypt as the third-worst jailer worldwide.
In its annual global survey, the Committee to Protect Journalists found at least 250 journalists in jail in relation to their work, compared with an adjusted 255 a year earlier. The highest number of journalists imprisoned in any year since CPJ began keeping track is 273 in 2016. After China, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, the worst jailers are Eritrea, Vietnam, and Iran.
For the year 2019, Egypt and Eritrea maintained the record of being Africa’s worst jailer of journalists, a press rights group, Committee for the Protection of Journalists, CPJ reported last week.
Egypt topped for the Middle East and North Africa, MENA, region whiles Eritrea was a leader for the Sub-Saharan Africa region.
CPJ releases the global list every year highlighting the plight of journalists languishing in jails for different reasons. CPJ’s Prison Census has 250 journalists behind bars for a range of offenses including fake news.
Of 39 journalists jailed in sub-Saharan Africa, the bulk remains in Eritrea, where most have not been heard from for nearly two decades; Cameroon was second worst. 92% of those jailed were male whiles females made up the remaining 8%
Vietnam remained Asia’s second-worst jailer after China, with 12 behind bars. In all of the Americas, three journalists were jailed.
Other findings from CPJ’s annual census include:
Ninety-eight percent of journalists jailed worldwide are locals covering their own country. Three of the four journalists with foreign citizenship are imprisoned in Saudi Arabia and the fourth in China.
Twenty of the jailed journalists, or 8 percent, are female, compared with 13 percent last year.
Politics was the beat most likely to land journalists in jail, followed by human rights and corruption.
More than half of those imprisoned were reporters publishing online.
CPJ believes that journalists should not be imprisoned for doing their jobs. In the past year, CPJ advocacy helped lead to the early release of at least 80 imprisoned journalists worldwide.