Every year, RSF compiles an overview of how many journalists are imprisoned, held hostage and killed around the world. Mexico is still considered the most dangerous country, with 11 people killed. Almost half of the murders of journalists in the past year took place in South and Central America. Nevertheless, the number has been relatively low for two years, at 48 in 2020 and 50 in 2021. In contrast, this year’s increase is almost 20 per cent. Picture of killed journalists from a demonstration against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in Washington DC. Photo: Alex Brandon / AP RSF believes this is partly due to the war in Ukraine. Slightly more journalists were killed in a war zone this year, compared to last year. In addition, the war has led to twice as many journalists being killed outside their own homeland. Of the eight journalists who have been killed in Ukraine since the war began, five have been foreign reporters from other countries. China imprisons the most RSF knows of 65 journalists who have been held hostage, 49 who are missing, and 533 who have been imprisoned. The latest number is also a record high, and has increased for several years in a row. The report also states that several countries “are becoming more and more comfortable imprisoning journalists who trouble them”. Freelancer Huang Xueqin was arrested in the fall of 2021. Photo: Free Huang Xueqin and Wang Jianbing on Github Only one in three of the imprisoned journalists has been convicted of something, writes RSF. The rest must have been denied any legal process. China, where censorship and surveillance of journalists and ordinary people is very extensive, is still the country that imprisons the most, with 110 current journalist prisoners. Among them is Huang Xueqin, a freelancer who covered corruption, environmental pollution from industry and the #MeToo movement in China. She is blamed by Chinese authorities for “inciting people to undermine state power”, and was arrested in September last year. For the first five months, she remained in solitary confinement, and was denied access to a lawyer. Japanese journalist Toru Kubota was released in November after being imprisoned by Myanmar. Photo: KAZUHIRO NOGI / AFP Head of RSF’s office in East Asia, Cédric Alviani, says the way Huang has been treated “demonstrates that the Chinese authorities will silence all the remaining independent voices in the country”. More than half of the journalists imprisoned worldwide are in China, Myanmar, Iran, Vietnam and Belarus. – Dictatorial and authoritarian regimes are filling their prisons faster than ever by imprisoning journalists, says RSF Secretary General Christophe Deloire. – This new record in the number of journalists who have been imprisoned confirms that it is urgent to resist these unscrupulous authorities. Iran’s reputation rose during the demonstrations In second place in the world is Myanmar, where a number of media companies were shut down after the coup in February 2021. Here, 62 journalists are imprisoned. In third place is Iran, which is in its third month of demonstrations following the death of Mahsa Amini (22) in September. The demonstrations in Iran have made the country third among the worst in the world when it comes to jailing journalists. Photo: YASIN AKGUL / AFP The uprising after the young Kurdish woman’s funeral has developed into a nationwide demonstration against the regime – At the beginning of December, 47 journalists were imprisoned in Iran, which is the highest number RSF has known in 20 years. Before the demonstrations started, it was 13. The organization is particularly troubled by Nilufar Hamedi and Elahe Mohammadi, who were among the first journalists to report Mahsa Amini’s death. Elahe Mohammadi and Nilufar Hamedi were arrested in Iran shortly after the demonstrations started in September. Photo: @NilofarAyoubi on Twitter They are now charged with “propaganda against the system and conspiracy against national security”, and risk the death penalty. China holds 19 journalists prisoner. Among others, Zhang Zhan, who received four years in prison for “creating unrest” by reporting the covid-19 pandemic on social media. – A democratic setback Eva Stabell in NJ and the International Federation of Journalists, say that press freedom here can be considered “the canary in the mines”. She says that although the number varies depending on who reports it, there is no doubt that the number of dead and imprisoned has increased. – Where freedom of the press disappears or declines, it is a democratic backlash that tells a lot about what is happening to freedom of expression and democracy in the world. Eva Stabell is project manager in NJ and representative in the International Federation of Journalists. Photo: Knut Falch / NTB – When heads of state in recent years, not least in Europe and in the USA, in Trump’s time, they condemn journalists and point to them as enemies. Then it is very dangerous to live and work in that country as a journalist. Stabell says they thought that major initiatives from UNESCO and the world’s journalistic organizations had helped, because 2020 and 2021 had the lowest death tolls since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. She says it is “very discouraging” to see that it is now getting worse again for journalists all over the world. At the same time, she believes that one should not place too much emphasis on the effect the war in Ukraine has had, because this is also a reflection of who traveled there when the fighting started. – We know that when the war started in Ukraine, it brought in journalists and freelancers from all over Europe, without safety equipment, without information on how to protect themselves, without the most basic knowledge. – It has happened in Libya, it has happened in Iraq and Syria, but I would say that it is not a trend. What most people do not pay attention to is that around 90 percent of the journalists who are killed each year are local national journalists, who have never signed up as war correspondents or wanted to end up and report on a war. She says Norwegian journalists who travel off guard to report on a conflict are usually much better protected than local journalists. But: – An attack on a journalist is defined by international agreements and the UN as a war crime. So we’re going to speak up, and we’re going to make a big deal out of it. Dangerous, but also important Thomas Spence in Norsk PEN, who works for freedom of expression, says the new numbers probably come from the fact that democracy and freedom of expression are under pressure in many places in the world. – Fortunately, the number is lower than it was a few years ago, but it is still going in the wrong direction. – In the old Eastern Europe, i.e. Poland, Hungary and the Balkans, we also see several tendencies for governing powers, oligarchs and newspaper owners to tighten and make it more difficult for the free, independent press to do its job. Apart from the direct threats that journalists and media workers are exposed to in several countries, including being imprisoned or killed, the development has an indirect cooling effect, according to Spence. Thomas Spence represents Norwegian PEN. Photo: Gorm Kallestad / NTB Other journalists are afraid to travel to the area, many who are afraid of losing their job or being threatened themselves can refrain from doing the job “as independently and as bravely as they would otherwise do”. The war in Ukraine is an example of an extremely difficult area, he says, where there are both physical boundaries and danger to journalists’ lives, but the need is also great. – It is the most dangerous, but also the most important, he says. – There are also many bright spots. There are an incredible number of tough, brave and responsible journalists and editors around the world who still do the job, even if it entails a danger for themselves.
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