Last year’s record has been broken again. The total of 533 journalists being held in connection with their work on 1 December was 13.4% higher than last year’s figure. RSF has also never previously seen so many women journalists in detention. A total of 78 are currently held, a record-breaking rise of nearly 30% compared to 2021. Women now account for nearly 15% of detained journalists, compared to fewer than 7% five years ago.
China, where censorship and surveillance have reached extreme levels, continues to be the world’s biggest jailer of journalists, with a total of 110 currently being held. They include Huang Xueqin, a freelance journalist who covered corruption, industrial pollution and the harassment of women. Also a sign of major repression, the Islamic Republic of Iran, with 47 detainees, became the world’s third biggest jailer of journalists just one month after the onset of massive protests. Among the first journalists detained were two women, Nilufar Hamedi and Elahe Mohammadi, who had helped draw attention to the death of the young Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini. They now face the death penalty.
“Dictatorial and authoritarian regimes are filling their prisons faster than ever by jailing journalists. This new record in the number of detained journalists confirms the pressing and urgent need to resist these unscrupulous governments and extend our active solidarity to all those who embody the ideal of journalistic freedom, independence, and pluralism.