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Most Jailed Journalists? China, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt Again Top Annual
CPJ Report

Peter Cobus

   The number of journalists imprisoned globally remains near a record
   high, according to an annual survey released Wednesday by the Committee
   to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which identifies China, Turkey, Saudi
   Arabia and Egypt as the world's largest jailers of reporters.

   "For the fourth consecutive year, hundreds of journalists are
   imprisoned globally as authoritarians like Xi Jinping, Recep Tayyip
   ErdoÄan, Mohammad bin Salman, and Abdel Fattah el-Sisi show no signs of
   letting up on the critical media," says [1]CPJ's 2019 Prison Census.

   Although the number of journalists imprisoned worldwide slipped from
   253 to 245 in 2019, the New York-based press freedom watchdog also says
   that journalists charged with reporting "false" or "fake news"
   continues to climb.

   "The number charged with 'false news' rose to 30, compared with 28 last
   year," says the report, explaining that the charge, most prolifically
   levied in Egypt, "has climbed steeply since 2012, when CPJ found only
   one journalist worldwide facing the allegation."

   "In the past year, repressive countries, including Russia and
   Singapore, have enacted laws criminalizing the publication of 'fake
   news.'"

   This year's census marks the first time since 2015 that Turkey did not
   rank as the world's largest jailer, in part because Ankara, "having
   stamped out virtually all independent reporting, released journalists
   awaiting trial or appeal."

   China -- second only to Turkey as one of the world's most repressive
   media environments for years -- has 47 journalists in prison, the same
   number as it did in 2018, which largely resulted from reporters
   attempting to document large-scale persecution of the predominantly
   Muslim Uighur ethnic minority in Xinjiang.

   "In one recent Chinese case, Sophia Huang Xueqin, a freelancer who
   formerly worked as an investigative reporter at Chinese outlets, was
   arrested in October shortly after describing on her blog what it was
   like to march with the pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong," the
   report states.

   Saudi Arabia, "where the number of journalists jailed has risen
   steadily since 2011," the report states, is currently holding 26
   reporters behind bars amid allegations of torture.

References

   1. https://cpj.org/2019/12/cpj-to-release-annual-list-of-journalists-imprison-4.php

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