Never before have so many journalists in the world been imprisoned for their work as this year. As of December 1, the association Reporters Without Borders (RSF) counted 533 media workers worldwide who were behind bars just because they reported. "More than a quarter of them were arrested during the year." This emerges from the "Annual Balance Sheet of Press Freedom 2022" published by the human rights organization. The three countries with the most prisoners from the media industry are China, Myanmar (formerly Burma) and Iran. But the state is also cracking down on Russia, for example.
Reporters Without Borders has never registered such a high number. "Last year the number of inmates increased by 20 percent to 470. This year the increase was slightly lower at 13.4 percent." But the enormously high number shows one thing again: "Authoritarian regimes are increasingly turning to simply locking up disruptive journalists. In most cases, they don't even bother to take them to court," the RSF said.
Just over a third of the imprisoned media workers were convicted. The remaining two-thirds are in prison without a trial. "Some of them have been waiting for their trial for more than 20 years," Reporters Without Borders said.
Journalists have to work underground
"In China, censorship and surveillance have reached an extreme level. The country is still the largest prison for media workers in the world." Including Hong Kong, according to the RSF, 110 media workers are being held there. "In Myanmar, journalism is now a de facto criminal offense, as evidenced by the large number of media outlets banned after the February 2021 military coup." There are 62 prisoners from the industry there. "The regime in Iran, on the other hand, only needed a few weeks to bring its country to third place on this list. Almost two months after the massive, nationwide protests broke out, 47 journalists are currently in prison there."
In Russia, too, the political leadership has been cracking down since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, as the organization reported. "Almost all independent media outlets in Russia were banned, blocked, declared 'foreign agents' - or all together - during the year."
Most of the media people who stayed in the country are forced to work underground because of the draconian penalties: If they spread "false information" about the Russian army, they face up to 15 years in prison. "At least 18 media workers are currently being held, including eight from Ukraine. They were arrested in Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014 and is now subject to Russian law," the RSF said.
Ukraine one of the most dangerous countries for reporters
In addition, significantly more journalists died at work in 2022 than in the previous year. RSF announced that 57 media workers had died worldwide. In the previous year there were still 48, around a fifth less.
One of the reasons for the increase was the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine. For two years, the death toll had fallen. The most dangerous countries were Mexico (11 dead), Ukraine (8 dead) and Haiti (6 dead). "Due to the war in Ukraine, (...) the number of media workers killed during a foreign assignment doubled," RSF summed up. "Of the eight journalists who lost their lives since the beginning of the war, five came from abroad."
According to the RSF 2022, more journalists also lost their lives at work outside of war zones. "On the one hand, this increase can be explained by the lifting of travel restrictions in connection with the Covid 19 pandemic." The media would have more people on site again. "On the other hand, several countries failed to contain the violence rampant in their country and to protect media workers. At least eleven journalists were murdered in Mexico alone." That's 20 percent of the victims worldwide. They often wrote about corruption. For the fourth year in a row, Mexico was the most dangerous country for the industry.
Almost 80 percent of the media workers killed in 2022 were specifically murdered because of their job or their topics.
