INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
A record total of 533 journalists are currently detained worldwide, according to the annual round-up of violence and abuses against
journalists published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF).The number of those killed has also increased this year & to 57& while 65
journalists are being held hostage and 49 are missing.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
Women now account for nearly 15% of detained journalists, compared to fewer than 7% five years ago, RSF said.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.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.The number of journalists killed has also risen
A total of 57 paid with their lives for their commitment to report the news in 2022 & an 18.8% increase compared to 2021, after a two-year
period of relative calm and historically low figures, RSF reported.The war that broke out in Ukraine on 24 February 2022 is one of the
Eight journalists were killed in the first six months of the war
Among them were Maks Levin, a Ukrainian photojournalist who was deliberately shot by Russian soldiers on 13 March, and Frédéric
Leclerc-Imhoff, a French video reporter for the TV news channel BFMTV, who was killed by shrapnel from an exploding shell while covering the
evacuation of civilians.The 2022 round-up also reports that at least 65 journalists and media workers are currently being held hostage
They include Olivier Dubois, a French reporter who has been held for more than 20 months by the Support Group for Islam and Muslims (JNIM),
an armed group in Mali affiliated with al-Qaeda, and Austin Tice, an American journalist abducted nearly 10 years ago in Syria
Furthermore, two more journalists were reported missing in 2022, bringing the total number of journalists currently missing to 49.The post
Record number of journalists currently jailed worldwide first appeared on Ariana News.
