Authoritarian regimes crack down on freedom of the press and, according to a study by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPS), it doesn’t matter whether the printing press involves paper and ink or pixels and computer screens. According to CPJ’s annual census of imprisoned journalists, as of December 1, there were 134 journalists in prison around the globe, up nine from the previous census. These statistics reflect a snapshot of the journalists imprisoned as of December 1. They don’t reflect the dozens, and perhaps hundreds, of other journalists jailed and released throughout the year.
The number of journalists imprisoned for work they made available on the Internet is rapidly rising - 49 of all the imprisoned journalists were jailed because of work appearing primarily on the Web, via e-mail, or in another electronic form, up from 41 as of the last census and the highest number ever.
China and Cuba are the two worst offenders but the U.S. has nothing to be proud of either. Among the imprisoned journalists are U.S. video blogger Joshua Wolf, who refused to give a grand jury his footage of a 2005 protest against a G-8 economic summit.
In addition, two journalists have been imprisoned by the U.S. without even the benefit of due process. AP photographer Bilal Hussein has been held in prison in Iraq for eight months now with no charges filed or trial scheduled. Al-Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Haj has been held in jail for five years and is now imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, with no charges filed or trial pending.
The rise in Internet journalists jailed reflects how insecure the governments are where journalists are punished for what they write, capture on video or photograph.
“I refer to the freedom of the press as the canary in the coal mine,” said Joshua Friedman, director of international programs at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. “It’s a barometer of the insecurity of the people running these governments. One of the things that makes them insecure these days is the power of the Internet.”
The other factor: journalists are increasingly turning to the web to circumvent traditional state controls. It’s a lot easier to bypass the usual print and TV censorship bureaucracy on the Internet.
Cynthia Brumfield at 8:23 AM|Comments(0)
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