The Committee to Protect Journalists has said that the number of journalist imprisonments has reached a record high.
According to CPJ’s 2022 prison census, As of December 1, 2022, 363 reporters were deprived of their freedom – a new global high that overtakes last year’s record by 20% and marks another grim milestone in a deteriorating media landscape.
“This year’s top five jailers of journalists are Iran, China, Myanmar, Turkey, and Belarus, respectively. A key driver behind authoritarian governments’ increasingly oppressive efforts to stifle the media: trying to keep the lid on broiling discontent in a world disrupted by COVID-19 and the economic fallout from Russia’s war on Ukraine,” CPJ stated, in its report.
Taking note of journalist imprisonments in India, CPJ said, seven journalists have been jailed- four of them are from Jammu Kashmir, which continues to remain at a record high for the second consecutive year since CPJ began its prison census in 1992.
The press release said, “India Continues to draw criticism over its treatment of the media, in particular its use of the Jammu Kashmir Public Safety Act, a preventive detention law, to keep Kashmiri journalists Aasif Sultan, Fahad Shah, and Sajad Gul behind bars after they were granted court-ordered bail in separate cases.”
The CPJ noted that six out of seven journalists in jail are being investigated under/charged under the terrorism-related Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). “Three journalists have been in jail for more than a year,” CPJ said.
According to the CPJ press release, seven journalsts who are imprisoned in India as of December 1, 2022 are:
1) Aasif Sultan, Kashmir Narrator, Jammu and Kashmir (since August 27, 2018 – 4 years 3 months)
2) Siddique Kappan, Freelance journalist, Uttar Pradesh (since October 5, 2020 – 2 year 2 months)
3) Gautam Navlakha, Freelance journalist, Maharashtra (since April 14, 2020 – 2 year, 7 months)
4) Manan Dar, Freelance journalist, Jammu Kashmir (since October 10, 2021 – 1 year 2 months)
5) Sajad Gul, The Kashmir Walla (since January 05, 2022 – 11 months)
6) Fahad Shah, The Kashmir Walla (since February 4, 2022 – 10 months)
7) Rupesh Kumar Singh, Freelance journalist, Jharkhand (since July 17, 2022 – 5 months)