The number of journalists jailed around the world for practising their profession has touched a record high, with 363 reporters deprived of their freedom as of December 1, 2022, according to the 2022 prison census released by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a non-profit organisation that promotes press freedom worldwide. This figure is a new global high that overtakes last year’s record by 20% “and marks another grim milestone in a deteriorating media landscape”, the report said.
This year’s top five jailers of journalists were Iran, China, Myanmar, Turkey, and Belarus, respectively. The report stated that a key driver behind authoritarian governments’ increasingly oppressive efforts to stifle the media was the intent “to keep the lid on broiling discontent in a world disrupted by COVID-19 and the economic fallout from Russia’s war on Ukraine”.
Regarding India, the report said that the country, “with seven journalists in jail, continues to draw criticism over its treatment of the media, in particular its use of the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act, a preventive detention law, to keep Kashmiri journalists Aasif Sultan, Fahad Shah, and Sajad Gul behind bars after they were granted court-ordered bail in separate cases.” The report further noted that six out of these seven journalists were being investigated or charged under the terrorism-related Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
Noting that imprisoning journalists is just one measure of how regimes crush press freedom, the report stated that “around the world, governments are also honing tactics like ‘fake news’ laws, are using criminal defamation and vaguely worded legislation to criminalise journalism, are ignoring the rule of law and abusing the judicial system, and are exploiting technology to spy on reporters and their families.”
Another theme highlighted by the CPJ data was repression of minorities. The report noted that in Iran and Turkey – both classified as “worst offenders” – it was Kurdish journalists who bore the brunt of government crackdown. In China, too, another ‘worst offender’, many imprisoned journalists were Uighurs from Xinjiang.
