Number of journalists jailed worldwide hits record amid unrest, pandemic

Police offi­cers detain a pho­to­jour­nal­ist dur­ing an oppo­si­tion ral­ly to protest the offi­cial pres­i­den­tial elec­tion results in Min­sk, Belarus, Sat­ur­day, Sept. 26, 2020. Hun­dreds of thou­sands of Belaru­sians have been protest­ing dai­ly since the Aug. 9 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion. (AP Photo/TUT.by)

New York, Decem­ber 15, 2020–A record num­ber of jour­nal­ists were impris­oned because of their work in 2020, as gov­ern­ments clamped down on news cov­er­age of civ­il unrest and the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic, the Com­mit­tee to Pro­tect Jour­nal­ists found in its lat­est annu­al cen­sus. 

“It’s shock­ing and appalling that we are see­ing a record num­ber of jour­nal­ists impris­oned in the midst of a glob­al pan­dem­ic,” said CPJ Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Joel Simon. “This wave of repres­sion is a form of cen­sor­ship that is dis­rupt­ing the flow of infor­ma­tion and fuel­ing the info­dem­ic. With COVID 19 rag­ing through the world’s prison, it’s also putting the lives of jour­nal­ists at risk.”

At least 274 jour­nal­ists were jailed as of Decem­ber 1, the most since CPJ began col­lect­ing data in the ear­ly 1990s, and the fifth con­sec­u­tive year with at least 250 jour­nal­ists impris­oned. Chi­na, Turkey, Egypt, and Sau­di Ara­bia were the worst jail­ers.

Protests and polit­i­cal ten­sions were a cat­a­lyst for many arrests. Two coun­tries with sig­nif­i­cant increas­es in jailed jour­nal­ists were Ethiopia, where unrest has degen­er­at­ed into armed con­flict, and Belarus, where jour­nal­ists were detained while cov­er­ing protests against Pres­i­dent Alek­san­dr Lukashenko, who claimed vic­to­ry in an elec­tion wide­ly seen as fraud­u­lent.

While no jour­nal­ists were jailed in the U.S. at the time of CPJ’s prison cen­sus, an unprece­dent­ed 110 were arrest­ed or charged in 2020, many while cov­er­ing demon­stra­tions against police vio­lence; at least 12 still face charges, accord­ing to the U.S. Press Free­dom Track­er.

Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s harsh rhetoric through­out his term, includ­ing call­ing crit­i­cal reports “fake news,” gave cov­er to author­i­tar­i­ans to crack down on jour­nal­ists in their own coun­tries. Glob­al­ly, 34 jour­nal­ists were jailed for “false news,” com­pared with 31 last year. CPJ recent­ly pub­lished rec­om­men­da­tions to the incom­ing Biden admin­is­tra­tion for restor­ing U.S. lead­er­ship on press free­dom, includ­ing pri­or­i­tiz­ing the issue in for­eign pol­i­cy and appoint­ing a Spe­cial Pres­i­den­tial Envoy for Press Free­dom.

“The record num­ber of jour­nal­ists impris­oned around the world is Pres­i­dent Trump’s press free­dom lega­cy,” Simon said. “The incom­ing Biden admin­is­tra­tion must work as part of a glob­al coali­tion to bring the num­ber down.”

Amid the pan­dem­ic, author­i­tar­i­an lead­ers tried to con­trol the nar­ra­tive by arrest­ing jour­nal­ists; they also delayed tri­als, restrict­ed vis­i­tors, and dis­re­gard­ed the increased health risk in prison; at least two jour­nal­ists died after con­tract­ing the dis­ease in cus­tody. CPJ doc­u­ment­ed more than 200 press free­dom vio­la­tions relat­ed to COVID-19 and launched the #FreeThe­P­ress cam­paign to call on world lead­ers to release all impris­oned jour­nal­ists.

CPJ’s cen­sus is a snap­shot of those incar­cer­at­ed at 12:01 a.m. on Decem­ber 1, 2020. It does not include the many jour­nal­ists impris­oned and released through­out the year; accounts of those cas­es can be found at http://cpj.org. Jour­nal­ists remain on CPJ’s list until the orga­ni­za­tion deter­mines with rea­son­able cer­tain­ty that they have been released or have died in cus­tody. CPJ advo­ca­cy helped lead to the ear­ly release of at least 75 impris­oned jour­nal­ists world­wide this year.

***

CPJ is an inde­pen­dent, non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tion that works to safe­guard press free­dom world­wide.