Unprecedented Imprisonment of Journalists; Keyvan Samimi, One of the World’s Oldest Imprisoned Journalists
The non-governmental organization “Reporters Without Borders” announced on Thursday, December 16, that currently 488 media professionals are imprisoned around the world, which is the highest number since this organization began tracking such cases more than 25 years ago.
In contrast, the number of journalists killed in the current calendar year was 46 people, which is the lowest number since the publication of annual statistics began. “Reporters Without Borders” attributes this to the relative stabilization of conflicts in the Middle East.
The non-governmental organization, which advocates for press freedom, stated in a statement: “The number of journalists arrested in connection with their work has never reached this level since 1995 when Reporters Without Borders began publishing its annual roundup. This figure increased by approximately 20 percent last year due to media suppression in Myanmar, Belarus, and Hong Kong.”
Reporters Without Borders also announced that it has never seen this many female journalists imprisoned in a single year. According to the organization’s statistics, 60 female journalists have been imprisoned in the past year, which is one-third more than in 2020.
Reporters Without Borders said that China again has the highest number of imprisoned journalists with 127 journalists in prison.
According to this report, after China, Myanmar ranks next with 53 imprisoned journalists, Vietnam with 43, Belarus with 32, and Saudi Arabia with 31 imprisoned journalists.
Contrary to the past, Iran’s name is not among these countries; however, one of the oldest imprisoned journalists in the world is imprisoned in Iran. Keyvan Samimi, 73 years old, along with Jimmy Lai, 74, from Hong Kong, are two elderly journalists who spend their time in prison because of their profession.
Reporters Without Borders writes that the decline in the number of killed journalists since its peak in 2016 is due to the decline in conflicts in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, which has attracted fewer journalists to the region.
In the year that passed, 46 journalists were killed, with most of these cases occurring as a result of assassination attempts against them, and the most dangerous countries in this regard were, in order, Mexico, Afghanistan, Yemen, and India.
According to Reporters Without Borders’ count, 65 journalists or their associates were taken hostage in the past year, all of which are related to the Middle East. 44 cases occurred in Syria, 11 in Iraq, and 9 kidnappings took place in Yemen.
The Committee to Protect Journalists in New York also published its annual report on December 8 of this year and wrote that China remains the world’s largest prison for journalists, and India and Mexico are also the deadliest countries for journalists.
In this committee’s report, Russia with 14 imprisoned journalists and Iran with 11 journalists behind bars are also at the top of this list.
In late September, Reporters Without Borders, while warning about the danger of “arbitrary” arrest of female journalists in the judicial system of the Islamic Republic, condemned the “systematic imprisonment of media activists” by the Iranian government.
Prior to that, the human rights organization “Article 19” in cooperation with the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported that the increasing trend of harassment of Iranian female journalists residing outside the country by the Islamic Republic authorities is “very concerning.”
Source: Radio Farda
