In record year, China, Israel, and Myanmar are world’s leading jailers of journalists - Committee to Protect Journalists 1/24/25, 10:29 AM before formally detaining them and violated its own criminal procedure law with a two-year extension of the incarceration of Egyptian-British blogger Alaa Abdelfattah, who should have been released in September. In Saudi Arabia, cartoonist Mohammed al-Ghamdi (Al-Hazza) was sentenced to 23 years as he was preparing to leave prison after serving his original six-year sentence. In China, it remains unclear whether #ve of the seven Uyghur students arrested with scholar and blogger Ilham Tohti were released when the last of them completed their sentences more than two years ago. Alaa Abdelfattah in an undated image obtained by Reuters on November 8, 2022. (Photo: Reuters/Omar Robert Hamilton) Trial delays were another punitive measure. In Hong Kong, media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai has been held since December 2020 amid repeated postponements of his trial on national security charges, which could see him jailed for life. His son Sebastien told CPJ that prison conditions are “breaking” his father’s body, raising concerns about the prospect of the 77-year-old spending another summer in the harsh conditions and sti$ing heat of a Hong Kong prison. In Guatemala, José Rubén Zamora spent more than 800 days in arbitrary detention before he was released to house arrest in October. But he still risks being returned to jail after an appeals court overturned that ruling in November, as he awaits a long-delayed retrial on money-laundering charges widely condemned as retaliation for his journalism. In Angola, Carlos Alberto was still in jail on December 1 despite becoming eligible for parole the previous month after his three-year sentence for criminal defamation was reduced to 27 months under a 2022 amnesty law. "e United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has found that Lai, Zamora, Eritrean journalist Dawit Isaak, Rwandan journalist "éoneste Nsengimana, and Palestinian journalists Mohammad Badr and Ameer Abu Iram are among those being held in violation of international law. (CPJ has repeatedly advocated on behalf of these journalists.) Ethnic discrimination Journalists from a range of marginalized ethnic groups were targeted across the globe. Almost half of those held in China are members of the mostly Muslim Uyghur minority; two are ethnic Kazakhs. All detained by Israel on the day of CPJ’s census are Palestinian. Two of the eight journalists imprisoned by Tajikistan are members of the longhttps://cpj.org/thematic-reports/in-record-year-china-israel-and-myanmar-are-worlds-leading-jailers-of-journalists/ Page 4 of 27