In record year, China, Israel, and Myanmar are world’s leading jailers of journalists - Committee to Protect Journalists 1/24/25, 10:29 AM foreign powers. In China’s north-western region of Xinjiang, where Beijing has been accused of crimes against humanity for its mass detentions and harsh repression of Muslim groups, two Uyghur journalists, Qurban Mamut and Mirap Muhammad, appear for the #rst time in the 2024 census after CPJ research determined that their incarceration was linked to their work. Mamut, the former editor-in-chief of the Uyghur-language magazine Xinjiang Civilization, is serving a 15-year sentence on charges of committing “political crimes” after he went missing in 2017. His son, Bahram Sintash, told CPJ that it took until 2022 to con#rm that his father was alive and where he was imprisoned. Muhammad, a Uyghur blogger whose articles included sensitive topics such as Uyghur and human rights issues, has been held incommunicado since his arrest in 2018 on accusations of “illegally providing intelligence to a foreign body.” #2 Israel CPJ documented 43 Palestinian journalists in Israeli custody on December 1, 2024 – more than double the number held in the 2023 census, when Israel ranked for the #rst time as one of the world’s worst jailers of journalists. While Israel has appeared several times on CPJ’s annual prison census, the arrests in the wake of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel are its highest since CPJ began keeping records in 1992. It is the first time Israel has ranked as the world’s second-worst jailer of journalists. Palestinian prisoners captured in the Gaza Strip by Israeli forces are seen at a detention facility in late 2023 on a military base in southern Israel. (Photo: Breaking !e Silence via AP) https://cpj.org/thematic-reports/in-record-year-china-israel-and-myanmar-are-worlds-leading-jailers-of-journalists/ Page 9 of 27