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NEW YORK — The variety of journalists jailed all over the world hit a brand new document in 2021, the New York-based Committee to Shield Journalists mentioned Thursday, with China and Myanmar having put 1 / 4 of the 293 detained media employees behind bars.
In its annual report, the CPJ listed 50 journalists imprisoned in China, 26 in Myanmar, 25 in Egypt, 23 in Vietnam and 19 in Belarus.
Including these jailed in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, Russia, Ethiopia and Eritrea, the CPJ mentioned a complete of 293 journalists have been in jail worldwide as of December 1 — up from 280 the yr earlier than.
“That is the sixth yr in a row that CPJ has documented document numbers of journalists imprisoned all over the world,” mentioned Joel Simon, govt director of the group.
“Imprisoning journalists for reporting the information is the hallmark of an authoritarian regime,” he mentioned in a press release.
For 40 years, the CPJ has denounced journalists being murdered, imprisoned, censored, bodily harm and threatened.
“It’s distressing to see many nations on the listing yr after yr, however it’s particularly horrifying that Myanmar and Ethiopia have so brutally slammed the door on press freedom.”
“This has been a part of a development of creeping authoritarianism all over the world,” mentioned Robert Mahoney, the committee’s deputy head. “Governments have gotten more and more illiberal of criticism.”
“The development has been growing. And I feel it’s a part of realization on the components of sure governments that there’s little or no political value to pay for doing that,” he mentioned.
“It could possibly be, you realize, earlier than one might identify and disgrace governments, governments wished diplomatic or industrial ties with liberal democracies that upheld these values. That appears to be much less and fewer the case.”
The affiliation additionally counted 24 journalists killed all over the world this yr.
Mexico “remained the Western hemisphere’s deadliest nation for journalists, with three murdered for his or her reporting and the motives for six different killings underneath investigation,” the CPJ mentioned.
India was additionally excessive on the listing, with 4 journalists killed this yr.
The CPJ mentioned the variety of journalists behind bars displays “growing intolerance for impartial reporting all over the world.”
The report famous restrictive environments for journalists all over the world, together with legal guidelines used to focus on reporters in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, the coup in Myanmar, the battle in northern Ethiopia and the crackdown on the opposition in Belarus.
In addition to intimidation and imprisonment, repressive governments discover different methods to silence critics “that are much less more likely to appeal to worldwide condemnation,” Mahoney mentioned.
“Jailing, but additionally tying journalists up in laws, bankrupting them with lawsuits,” he mentioned.
“It could possibly be, for instance, limiting them the technique of communication, when there’s a giant story. So we’ve seen throttling of the web, that’s to say, slowing down the speeds of web so it turns into nearly not possible to add video or footage of a protest.”
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