Point-blank: Arresting journalists

Mohamed Salmawy
Tuesday 28 Jan 2025

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) recently released its annual report on journalists imprisoned because of their work in 2024. It listed China, Israel and Myanmar as the world’s leading jailers of journalists.

 

 The number of journalists arrested in China last year was 50, Israel 43, and Myanmar 35. China and Israel held the record for first and second place in 2023, but this year Myanmar moved into third place, followed by Belarus and Russia with 31 and 30 journalists arrested, respectively.

The CPJ’s prison census report described 2024 as a “record-setting” year, with 361 journalists incarcerated as of December. It reminded us that the actual figure might be higher, as it is difficult to verify numbers of detainees in some countries, such as China, including Hong Kong, which routinely appear at the top of the census lists.

According to the report, the number of journalists in Israeli prisons more than doubled in 2024 over the previous year. This was part of the Israeli occupying power’s clampdown on the press, in general, to prevent journalists of all nationalities from covering how Israel conducted its war on Gaza. It noted that a total of 108 journalists were arrested across the entire Middle East and North Africa in 2024, almost half as a result of the war in Gaza. It did not name the countries involved.

Other countries mentioned in the report were Vietnam, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, and the Philippines. The CPJ reported that 228 journalists – or more than 60 per cent of those jailed in 2024 – were arrested on anti-government offenses and vague charges of terrorism and extremism.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 30 January, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly

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