Number of Journalists Jailed Worldwide Continues To Rise

12 December 2006
Number of Journalists Jailed Worldwide Continues To Rise

Survey says increasing number of Internet journalists imprisoned
By Eric Green
USINFO Staff Writer

Washington -- The number of journalists imprisoned worldwide for their
work has increased for the second straight year, with about a third of
the jailed journalists involved in Internet dissemination of
information, according to the global press advocacy group the Committee
to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

The New York-based CPJ said its annual worldwide census found that 134
journalists were imprisoned on December 1, an increase of nine from the
2005 survey. Of the total, some 49 Internet journalists were imprisoned
in 2006, the highest number CPJ has tallied in its annual survey.

China, Cuba, Eritrea and Ethiopia were the top four jailers among the 24
nations that imprisoned journalists, said the CPJ in a December 7 statement.

"Anti-state" allegations such as subversion, divulging state secrets and
acting against the interests of the state are the most common charges
used to imprison journalists worldwide, said the CPJ, adding that 84
journalists are jailed under these charges, many by the Chinese, Cuban
and Ethiopian governments.

But the CPJ also found an increasing number of journalists held without
any charge or trial at all. Some 20 imprisoned journalists have been
denied even the most basic elements of due process, the CPJ found. The
press group said Eritrea, which accounts for more than half of the cases
where no charges are made, keeps journalists in secret locations and
withholds basic information about their well-being.

For the eighth consecutive year, China is the world's leading jailer of
journalists, with 31 imprisoned. Nineteen cases involve Internet
journalists.

Cuba ranked second on the list, with 24 reporters, writers and editors
behind bars, most of them jailed in the country's massive March 2003
crackdown on dissidents and the independent press, said the CPJ. Nearly
all of those on Cuba's list had filed news and commentary to overseas
Web sites. These journalists used phone lines and faxes, not computers,
to transmit their reports. Once posted, their articles were seen across
the world but almost never in Cuba, where the government heavily
restricts Internet access.

Another press advocacy group, the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders,
has put both China and Cuba on its list of 15 countries that are
"enemies" of the Internet. (See related article.)

Regarding Cuba, the U.S. State Department's Cuban affairs office said in
a November 27 statement to USINFO that Reporters Without Borders has
called Cuba "one of the top worst countries for journalists," and that
more than 330 prisoners of conscience continue to languish in Cuban
jails. (See related article.)

The United States has been in the forefront in opposing governments
around the world that seek to repress dissent on the Internet. A State
Department initiative, the Global Internet Freedom Task Force, is
considering the foreign policy aspects of Internet freedom, including
the use of technology to track and repress dissidents and to restrict
access to political content. (See related article.)

The CPJ survey found that Eritrea -- with 23 jailed journalists -- leads
Africa in the number of journalists in prison. These journalists are
being held incommunicado, and their well-being is a growing source of
concern, said the CPJ.

CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon said that in Cuba and China,
journalists often are jailed after summary trials and held in "miserable
conditions far from their families. But the cruelty and injustice of
imprisonment is compounded where there is zero due process and
journalists slip into oblivion. In Eritrea, the worst abuser in this
regard, there is no check on authority and it is unclear whether some
jailed journalists are even alive."

Ethiopia has imprisoned 18 journalists, most of whom are being tried for
treason after being swept up by authorities in a November 2005 crackdown
on dissent, although a CPJ investigation found no basis for the
government's treason charges.

Regarding the high number of imprisoned Internet journalists, Simon said
that now is a "crucial" time in the fight for press freedom "because
authoritarian states have made the Internet a major front in their
effort to control information. China is challenging the notion that the
Internet is impossible to control or censor, and if it succeeds there
will be far-ranging implications, not only for the medium but for press
freedom all over the world."

The CPJ said its survey is only a "snapshot" of those journalists
incarcerated as of December 1 and does not include the many journalists
imprisoned and released throughout 2006.

The survey is available on the CPJ Web site.

The repression against journalists worldwide is also documented in the
State Department's "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices" for 2005.

(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs,
U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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