In record year, China, Israel, and Myanmar are world’s leading jailers of journalists - Committee to Protect Journalists 1/24/25, 10:29 AM where appropriate or needed; 2- National human rights institutions and the U.N. Human Rights Council spotlighting cases of wrongfully imprisoned journalists, and their wider repercussions for shrinking civic space, freedom of expression, and meaningful exercise of fundamental rights. 3- Ensuring that the Universal Periodic Review process consistently and rigorously focuses on press freedoms, including detailing any arbitrarily detained or imprisoned journalists, and that member countries vigorously seek to implement recommendations for freedom and reform. CPJ also encourages other actors in the international community, beyond those mandated to address press freedom or free expression, to consider the signi#cant impact the crackdown on journalists has on economic development, global security, electoral integrity, and other critical issues of international concern, and to incorporate demands for press freedom and the release of detained journalists in their work. For example, development banks could require government clients to release jailed journalists as a condition of loan or publicly condemn reprisals against journalists, and the wider ecosystem of UN special envoys and special rapporteurs should consider how press freedom relates to their own mandates. 2. Repeal and reform cybercrime laws that target journalists Cybercrime laws and similar legislation governing online content over the past decade increasingly use the guise of ‘#ghting cybercrime’ to criminalize and jail journalists in Bangladesh, Jordan, Nicaragua, Nigeria and Pakistan, among others. "e United Nations Convention against Cybercrime was o%cially adopted in December 2024 and will enter into force in 90 days after being rati#ed or accepted by 40 member states. As CPJ and other groups – including digital security experts, industry, and the United Nation’s own human rights o%ce – have argued, the convention, #rst proposed by Russia, has broad provisions that risk subjecting journalists and other vulnerable groups to unwarranted investigations, prosecution, surveillance, and transnational repression for exercising fundamental human rights while using digital technology. Governments with existing cybercrime laws must: – Review existing national legislation governing online content for provisions that could be used to prevent or punish journalism. https://cpj.org/thematic-reports/in-record-year-china-israel-and-myanmar-are-worlds-leading-jailers-of-journalists/ Page 22 of 27