Turkey, Iran, China top list as 232 journalists imprisoned globally, group says
“We are living in an age when anti-state
charges and ‘terrorist’ labels have become the preferred means that
governments use to intimidate, detain, and imprison journalists,” CPJ
Executive Director Joel Simon said in a statement.
ADDIS ABABA,
ETHIOPIA—More journalists than ever are languishing in prisons across
the world as countries like Turkey, Iran and China step up terror and
other anti-state charges to silence critical press, the U.S.-based
Committee to Protect Journalists said Tuesday.
The group said it
identified 232 writers, editors, and photojournalists behind bars as of
Dec. 1, an increase of 53 from 2011 figures and a record number since
the group began counting in 1990.
“We are living in an
age when anti-state charges and ‘terrorist’ labels have become the
preferred means that governments use to intimidate, detain, and imprison
journalists,” CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon said in a statement.
“Criminalizing probing
coverage of inconvenient topics violates not only international law,
but impedes the right of people around the world to gather, disseminate,
and receive independent information,” Simon said.
Turkey currently holds
more journalists — 49 — than any other country, the group said. Dozens
of those imprisoned are Kurdish reporters and editors held on
terror-related charges and anti-government plots.
The watchdog said
broadly worded anti-terror and penal code statutes allow Turkish
authorities “to conflate the coverage of banned groups and the
investigation of sensitive topics with outright terrorism or other
anti-state activity.”
Iran is the
second-worst jailer, with 45 journalists behind bars, the watchdog said.
China is the third worst. The ruling Communist Party made “extensive
use of anti-state charges to jail online writers expressing dissident
political views and journalists covering ethnic minority groups.”
Nineteen of the 32 journalists held in China are from the Muslim Uighur
minority and ethnic Tibetan groups.
The Red Sea nation of
Eritrea, which faces multiple UN-imposed sanctions over allegations it
supports Al Qaeda-linked militants in neighbouring Somalia, holds 28
journalists in jail, the group said. None of the journalists have ever
been publicly charged or appeared before court, it said.
Syria, where a bloody civil war has been ravaging for months, holds 15 journalists in jail.
Vietnam, Azerbaijan,
Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, and Uzbekistan complete the top 10 countries
holding the most journalists behind bars. One journalist behind bars in
Ethiopia is Eskinder Nega, who was named a winner of PEN America’s
PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award in May. He was convicted on
terror charges.
The Committee to
Project Journalists also highlighted an improvement in Myanmar, which
over the last year has pardoned a dozen journalists.
