Media Workers Get Jail, Creeps Like It - updated

Michael Hedges December 13, 2021 - Follow on Twitter

Major press freedom and journalism advocates released annotated status reports this past week timed to coincide with International Human Rights Day. Most startling was that not much has changed in the last year. Dictators and authoritarian governments continue to run rings around those pleading for sanity.

“It’s distressing to see many countries on the list year after year,” noted Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) executive director Joel Simon in a statement (December 9) coinciding with the release of its 2021 Journalists Imprisoned report. The group counts 293 reporters in jail, up from 280 year on year. The CPJ counted 24 journalists murdered “motive confirmed” during the year ending December 1st with another 18 killed under questionable circumstances.

Breakdowns by country show few regions spared. The People’s Republic of China (China) tops the list for the third year with 50 imprisoned, according to the CPJ census. That includes, for the first time, journalists held in Hong Kong. To receive press credential Chinese journalists must undergo “ideological training,” 90 hours of “education” each year to understand president Xi Jinping’s “mindset.” Of course, there’s an appropriate app to download.

Into second place in the CPJ report moved Myanmar (Burma) with 26 imprisoned, rounded up largely after the February military coup. Egypt (25), Vietnam (23) and Belarus (19) complete the top five jailers. On the darker side, 5 journalists in India were killed, 3 in Mexico and 2 each in Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Burkina Faso, Pakistan and Somalia.

Slipping out of the top five countries imprisoning journalists was Turkey, once quite prolific rounding up journalists. But in the past year Turkish authorities released more than half, 20 of 38 incarcerated. “It would be naïve to see lower prisoner numbers as a sign of a change of heart toward the press,” said CPJ, noting the “complete eradication” of “mainstream media” with journalists leaving the profession if not the country.

International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) also released (December 9) a compendium of journalists and media workers incarcerated and killed. It lists 365 journalists currently in jails or prisons, up from 235 last year. China accounts for 102 imprisoned, many linked to the coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic in Wuhan and the further arrests of Uyghur journalists reporting on the treatment of the Muslim minority in western China.

"The world needs to wake up to the growing violations of journalists' rights and media freedoms across the globe,” said IFJ general secretary Anthony Bellanger in a statement accompanying the datasets. “These lists of journalists in jail and colleagues who have been killed are clear evidence of deliberate acts to suppress independent reporting. They also point to the violation of the people’s fundamental right to access accurate, objective and fair information so that they can make properly informed choices about public affairs, which is a requisite for an inclusive society and true rule by consent.’’

The next biggest jailers of journalists, according to IFJ data, are Turkey (34), Belarus (29), Eritera (29), Egypt (27), Vietnam (21) and Myanmar (18). Deaths of media workers related to occupation dropped for the year to 45, from 65 one year on. Afghanistan led with 9 deaths “after the return to power of the Taliban with their avowed intolerance to independent reporting and hostile attitude to women’s participation in public life, including working as journalists,” said the IFJ summary. Mexico followed with 8 killed, India (4) and Pakistan (4). The CPJ and IFJ surveys differ due to definitions and survey dates.

Year-to-year and even country-to-country variations could also be explained, noted the authors and observers, by authoritarian regimes changing tactics. Killing and carving up a media worker, such as the fate of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, might dissuade criticism, not to forget please the diabolical, but there are undesired long-term effects. The detention of an individual allegedly involved in Mr. Khashoggi’s death in Paris received headlines worldwide, renewing the dark stain on Saudi authorities.

Becoming more prevalent is attacking platforms. Authoritarian regimes regularly block access to the internet in an effort to “cleanse” unwanted critical thought, even establishing alternatives to well-known platforms. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan proclaimed social media a “threat to democracy,” reported Al-Jazeera (December 11), because they are “channels lacking any effective control mechanism.” So, he created a new law.

But jailing the errant writer or publisher remains the preferred control over dissent. Jimmy Lai, publisher of the now-shuttered Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily, remains in jail. The Taiwan edition of Apple Daily recently closed due to financial harm. At the first of December newspaper support group WAN-IFRA awarded the Apple Daily staff, Jimmy Lai included, its Golden Pen of Freedom award. Days later, reported Bloomberg (December 9) Jimmy Lai was convicted by a Hong Kong court for spending 15 minutes at a Tiananmen Massacre vigil last year “inciting others to knowingly participate in an unauthorised assembly.”

UPDATE: Jimmy Lai and others were handed sentences this week (December 13) for taking part in an “unauthorized assembly.” Local judge Amanda Woodcock cited the coronavirus pandemic for the 13 month sentence. Jimmy Lai has served a year of a 20 month sentence for participating in a different “unauthorized assembly.” The new sentence is now applied concurrently with the former sentence. He is facing trials on two other charges.

“If commemorating those who died because of injustice is a crime, then inflict on me that crime and let me suffer the punishment of this crime, so I may share the burden and glory of those young men and women who shed blood on June 4 to proclaim truth, justice and goodness,” said his statement read to the court at sentencing, reported VOA (December 14).

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