In record year, China, Israel, and Myanmar are world’s leading jailers of journalists - Committee to Protect Journalists 1/24/25, 10:29 AM Chinese journalist Sophia Huang Xueqin, seen here in an undated photo, has been held incommunicado for three years over her reporting. (Photo: Courtesy of Free Huang XueQin & Wang JianBing campaign group) China has routinely appeared in CPJ’s annual prison census as one of the world’s top jailers of journalists. "e 50 recorded as being behind bars on December 1, 2024, are likely an undercount given Beijing’s pervasive censorship and mass surveillance that often leaves families too intimidated to talk about a relative’s arrest. "eir circumstances are a stark re$ection of China’s intolerance for independent voices. CPJ’s 2024 data indicates that Beijing is ramping up the use of anti-state charges to target journalists. Chinese journalists Dong Yuyu, detained in February 2022 while having lunch with a Japanese diplomat, and Sophia Huang Xueqin, in custody since September 2021, were sentenced in November 2024 to seven and #ve years respectively on charges of espionage and “inciting subversion of state power.” Chinese independent journalist Li Weizhong, arrested in October 2024, is also being held on allegations of inciting subversion of state power. #e 50 recorded as being behind bars are likely an undercount given Beijing’s pervasive censorship and mass surveillance. In Hong Kong, the media faced growing pressure. Journalists detained in 2020 and 2021, as authorities’ cracked down on the city’s pro-democracy movement, remain in jail amid repeated legal delays. In addition to Lai, six journalists and media executives from Lai’s Next Digital Limited and now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper – Lam Man-chung, Fung Wai-kong, Yeung Ching-kee, Cheung Kim-hung, Ryan Law Wai-kwong, and Chan Pui-man – have spent more than three years behind bars as they await sentencing on charges of conspiring to collude with https://cpj.org/thematic-reports/in-record-year-china-israel-and-myanmar-are-worlds-leading-jailers-of-journalists/ Page 8 of 27