A record number of journalists are currently detained worldwide, according to the annual round-up of violence and abuses against journalists, published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF).."The number of those killed has increased again this year, to 57, while 65 journalists are being held hostage and 49 are missing," RSF stated..In total, 533 journalists are being held in connection with their work as of December 1. This is 13.4% higher than last year’s figure.."RSF has also never previously seen so many women journalists in detention. A total of 78 are currently held, a record-breaking rise of nearly 30% compared to 2021. Women now account for nearly 15% of detained journalists, compared to fewer than 7% five years ago," RSF reported.."China, where censorship and surveillance have reached extreme levels, continues to be the world’s biggest jailer of journalists, with a total of 110 currently being held.".They include Huang Xueqin, a freelance journalist who covered corruption, industrial pollution and the harassment of women.."Dictatorial and authoritarian regimes are filling their prisons faster than ever by jailing journalists," RSF Secretary-General Christophe Deloire said.."This new record in the number of detained journalists confirms the pressing and urgent need to resist these unscrupulous governments and to extend our active solidarity to all those who embody the ideal of journalistic freedom, independence and pluralism.".According to the RSF, the Islamic Republic of Iran is also showing major signs of repression, with 47 detainees. It became the world’s third biggest jailer of journalists just one month after the onset of massive protests.."Among the first journalists detained were two women, Nilufar Hamedi and Elahe Mohammadi, who had helped draw attention to the death of the young Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini. They now face the death penalty," RSF reported..The number of journalists killed has also risen.."A total of 57 paid with their lives for their commitment to report the news in 2022 — an 18.8% increase compared to 2021, after a two-year period of relative calm and historically low figures," RSF stated in its report.."The war that broke out in Ukraine on Feb. 24 2022 is one of the reasons for this rise. Eight journalists were killed in the first six months of the war. Among them were Maks Levin, a Ukrainian photojournalist who was deliberately shot by Russian soldiers on March 13, and Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff, a French video reporter for the TV news channel BFMTV, who was killed by shrapnel from an exploding shell while covering the evacuation of civilians.".According to the report, more than 60% of journalists killed lost their lives in countries considered to be "at peace" in 2022.."Eleven were murdered in Mexico alone — nearly 20% of the overall number of journalists killed worldwide," the RSF said..Mexico’s figures, along with Haiti’s (six killed) and Brazil’s (three killed) helped turn the Americas into the world’s most dangerous region for the media, with nearly half (47.4%) of the total number of journalists killed worldwide in 2022..The 2022 round-up also reports that at least 65 journalists and media workers are currently being held hostage.."They include Olivier Dubois, a French reporter who has been held for more than 20 months by the Support Group for Islam and Muslims (JNIM), an armed group in Mali affiliated with al-Qaeda, and Austin Tice, an American journalist abducted nearly 10 years ago in Syria.."Furthermore, two more journalists were reported missing in 2022, bringing the total number of journalists currently missing to 49," RSF said in the report.."The round-up also takes a look at some of the year’s most striking cases, including that of Ivan Safronov, one of Russia’s best investigative journalists, who was sentenced to 22 years in prison for revealing state secrets that were readily available online.".This was the longest sentence recorded by RSF in 2022, the report noted..It also mentions the case of Dom Phillips, a British journalist whose dismembered body was found in a remote part of the Brazilian Amazon, where he had gone to research the attempts by local indigenous groups to combat poaching, illegal gold mining, and deforestation..Since 1995, RSF has been compiling an annual round-up of violence and abuses against journalists based on precise data collected..The 2022 round-up figures include professional journalists, non-professional journalists and media workers.."RSF gathers detailed information that allows it to affirm with certainty or a great deal of confidence that the detention, abduction, disappearance or death of each journalist was a direct result of their journalistic work," RSF stated.."Our methodology may explain differences between our figures and those of other organizations."
