The Committee to Protect Journalists’ (CPJ) 2023 prison census indicates near-record levels of journalist imprisonment, revealing an alarming scenario in Israel that rose from the 24th position to the sixth amongst the countries imprisoning the most journalists.
The leading nations in terms of journalist imprisonments for the year identified by the census were China, Myanmar, Belarus, Russia, and Vietnam, respectively. Israel’s impressive surge sees it currently tied with Iran. What predominantly contributed to this shift in the Israeli scenario was the detention of 17 Palestinian journalists following the Israel-Hamas War ignited on October 7.
The census demonstrated that 320 journalists across 38 countries were incarcerated as of December 1, 2023. This is the second-highest recording since CPJ commenced its annual census in 1992. The drop as compared to 2022’s number of 367, CPJ further reports, must be attributed to the release of several journalists in Iran pending charges or sentencing, rather than any lessening in media harassment.
In many instances, journalists are jailed without formally being notified of their charges. Quite often, they are punished with extremely adverse conditions for their work. Such hazard-ridden operational environments, particularly in conflict zones, have led UNESCO to term them “zones of silence“.
Sharing data on the final day of 2023, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) revealed that 779 journalists were detained for at least 48 hours during the year, with 547 of them still enduring detention or house arrest across 45 countries.
Highlighting the repercussions of this scenario, RSF Secretary-general Christophe Deloire stated that each imprisoned journalist is essentially a press member unable to fulfill their duties, adding to an atmosphere of intimidation and potential self-censorship among their peers. This, in essence, violates the right to news and information of millions.
Raising concerns over journalists’ detainment, UN Human Rights Office spokesperson Liz Throssell emphasized that penalizing journalists for exercising their freedom of speech is not acceptable under international human rights law. Echoing these sentiments, Jeanne Cavelier, Head of RSF’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk, also pushed for providing journalists with protection and refraining from portraying corruption investigation as a crime.