FRANCE: The number of journalists imprisoned around the world has hit a new record, according to an annual tally by press freedom watchdog, Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontieres, or RSF).
A total of 533 media professionals were imprisoned in 2022, up from 488 last year, the RSF’s Annual Press Freedom Review published on Wednesday found.
“More than a quarter of them were imprisoned during the year,” said the Paris-based watchdog which has been publishing the annual tally since 1995.
Among the 47 journalists currently in prison in Iran, 34 have been arrested since protests broke out in September over the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was arrested for breaching the country’s strict dress code.
In Myanmar, journalism is “effectively a criminal offence” since the military coup in 2021, with 62 journalists currently imprisoned, the RSF said.
Eighteen media workers, including eight from Ukraine, are currently imprisoned in Russia, where all independent media have virtually been banned, it said. Fifty-seven journalists were killed, due in part to the war in Ukraine, up from 48 and 50 in the last two years respectively.
Eight journalists have been killed reporting on the war, five of them from non-combatant countries. The RSF said nearly 80 percent of media professionals killed around the world in 2022 were “deliberately targeted in connection with their work or the stories they were covering”, such as organised crime and corruption cases.
The number of female journalists in prison is also at an all-time high worldwide, rising from 60 to 78 since 2021, largely due to greater numbers entering the profession. - ALJAZEERA
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