Dharamsala, December 10: A new study by New York-based global media watch group has said China and Iran are the biggest jailers of journalists with 34 imprisoned in each country.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said together the two countries accounted for nearly half of the world’s total imprisoned journalists.
China in 2009 had jailed 24 journalists. This year’s increase to 34 included Uighur and Tibetan journalists who have covered regional unrest. Among the detainees were a Tibetan writer known as Buddha, who wrote about economic disparities between Tibet and the rest of China, and Gheyrat Niyaz, an Uighur website editor who covered ethnic violence in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.
Iranian detainees range from high-profile writers such as Issa Saharkhiz, a well-known state journalist who started writing reformist columns, to Navid Mohebbi, a women’s rights blogger who, at age 18, was the youngest in the CPJ study of jailed journalists.
Eritrea, Myanmar and Uzbekistan filled out the remaining roles of the five worst jailers among 28 nations currently imprisoning journalists.
According to new figures released by the group, the number of journalists currently in prison because of their work has risen to its highest level since 1996,
In its annual census of imprisoned journalists, the CPJ found that as of 1 December, 145 reporters, editors and photojournalists were in jail in 28 countries. The 2010 figure represents an increase of nine from 2009’s census despite the release in October of 14 journalists jailed in Cuba.
Most of those imprisoned were working online (69), with almost as many in print (57) and freelancers across all mediums account for 64 cases of imprisonment, a figure which is consistent with 2009’s findings. Of those being held, 72 have been detained on anti-state charges, while 34 are imprisoned despite no charge being filed against them, the CPJ data suggests.
“The increase in the number of journalists jailed around the world is a shocking development,” says CPJ executive director Joel Simon on the organisation’s website.
“It is fuelled largely by a small handful of countries that systematically jail journalists – countries that are at war with information itself.”
The census does not include journalists that have been imprisoned and released earlier in 2010.
