source: Maktoob Media

published: 18 January 2025

Image Credit: franky242 at www.FreeDigitalPhotos.net

China, Israel, and Myanmar emerged as the world’s three worst offenders in another record-setting year for journalists jailed because of their work, the Committee to Protect Journalists’ 2024 prison census has found.

Belarus and Russia rounded out the top five, with CPJ documenting its second-highest number of journalists behind bars – a global total of at least 361 journalists incarcerated on December 1, 2024.

India had three journalists in custody, two of them Kashmiris arrested in 2023 against a backdrop of increased incarceration of journalists in the Muslim-majority region after the 2019 repeal of its special autonomy status.

The primary drivers of journalist imprisonment in 2024 – a year that saw more than 100 new jailings – were ongoing authoritarian repression (China, Myanmar, Vietnam, Belarus, Russia), war (Israel, Russia), and political or economic instability (Egypt, Nicaragua, Bangladesh).

Many of the journalists in CPJ’s 2024 census have been sentenced to spend significant parts of their lives in jail. Ten have been sentenced to life; one has been sentenced to death.

A total of 54 are serving more than 10 years; 55 between five and 10 years, and 62 between one and five years.

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