The number of journalists imprisoned around the world for reasons related to their professional activity reached a record in 2021: at least 293 are in prison. The increase in the figure, which last year was 280, is related to authoritarian regimes that, from Latin America to Asia, have gained momentum in recent years.
The survey and analysis are by the CPJ (Committee to Protect Journalists), a global organization that has been monitoring the issue for more than four decades. A report released this Thursday (9) also shows that 24 journalists were murdered this year due to their profession.
At the root of the problem, the committee assesses, is a growing trend of media intolerance. And there are regimes that take advantage of latent social concerns, such as the pandemic, to intensify repression.
“In a world worried about Covid and trying to prioritize issues like the climate emergency, repressive governments know that public outrage at human rights violations will cool, while democratic governments have less appetite to retaliate politically and economically [os Estados que perseguem jornalistas]”, says the committee in an excerpt of the report.
The leader in sheer numbers of journalists behind bars for carrying out their work is the regime led by Xi Jinping. With 50 professionals imprisoned, China is followed by Myanmar (26), Egypt (25), Vietnam (23), Belarus (19) and Turkey (18). Eritrea leads the Sub-Saharan Africa region with 16 detainees. In America, the first place goes to Cuba, with 3 imprisoned journalists.
The Chinese figure was increased this year by eight journalists imprisoned in Hong Kong, a region that for the first time appeared in CPJ’s annual report, published since the early 1990s. The debut is due to the advance of censorship in the region. One of those arrested is media tycoon Jimmy Lai, founder of the Apple Daily, one of the most important pro-democracy newspapers in the territory, which ceased circulation in June.
Also noteworthy is the repression against journalists of the Uighur ethnic group, from the Xinjiang province, historically persecuted by the communist regime in the Asian country. A recent survey by Reporters Without Borders went further and measured that more than 70 Uighur professionals are being held.
Another newcomer to the global list is Myanmar. At least 26 journalists have been arrested since the country’s army arrested the top civilian government and staged a coup d’état in February, taking the Asian nation to second place on the list of countries with the most imprisonment of media professionals.
The Ethiopian situation is also described as worrying on the African continent. The civil war in the northern Tigre region between the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed —a figure once celebrated for winning the Nobel Peace Prize— and the People’s Liberation Front of Tigre, has slipped into the press: 9 journalists have been arrested, being 6 only in November. Two weeks ago, when the local government banned the release of information about the war that is not provided by the military, alarms of further press restrictions sounded.
With six journalists in prison—3 in Cuba, 2 in Nicaragua, and 1 in Brazil—America Larina appears to occupy a secondary place on the global stage, but CPJ is quick to warn that the view is wrong: “We have encountered a worrying decline in press freedom in the region”.
AT leaf CPJ coordinator for Latin America and the Caribbean, Natalie Southwick, explains that the region is concerned about recurrently recording more journalists murdered than imprisoned. Mexico, for example, which is not even on the list of countries with imprisoned journalists, was the scene of three murders of press professionals this year. In 2020, six were killed in the country.
“We’re still seeing consistent threats of deadly violence against journalists across the region, it hasn’t gone away,” sums up Southwick, who cites Brazil under Jair Bolsonaro (PL) as a sensitive point of CPJ concern. “Now we are seeing different tactics, such as legal and online harassment [contra jornalistas], as well as gender-based violence against reporters.”
The only Brazilian case in the report is that of sports journalist Paulo Cezar de Andrade Prado, who was sentenced to more than five months in semi-open prison terms for defamation against businessman Paulo Sérgio Menezes Garcia, former vice president of Corinthians.
Brazilian organizations linked to the defense of press and expression freedoms are critical of the journalist’s arrest. The president of Abraji (Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism), Marcelo Träsel, says that the organization joins international bodies such as the OAS (Organization of American States), which criticize the fact that crimes against honor are dealt with by the criminal sphere, and not in civil.
“The criminal treatment of crimes against honor can create instruments that allow interest groups or powerful people to abuse the judiciary to harass journalists,” he explains.
Regarding the Brazilian situation, he says that this is the worst period for press freedom since the country’s redemocratization, a situation made worse by the use of the National Security Law to investigate journalists, judicial harassment and the speeches of public authorities against the free press. “The practice of journalism in Brazil is much more difficult and dangerous.”
Also according to the data in the report, of the 293 journalists imprisoned around the world, 253 are men and 40 are women. The majority —196— are linked to some organization or press vehicle, while 97 are freelancers. Of the total, six journalists were not citizens of the countries where they were detained.
Regarding the 24 journalists murdered, the document details that 19 were killed in retaliation for their work, t3 died working in conflict zones and 2 were killed while covering social protests in the streets.
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