A study by the Committee to Protect Journalists found that nearly half (45%) of the jailed journalists in the world are bloggers. Since the study was first conducted in 1997, this is the first time that bloggers have exceeded print journalists (42%). Television, radio and documentary filmmakers make up the remainder.
The study found that over 80% of the journalists imprisoned in China were bloggers. China also had the most journalists imprisoned, 28, followed by Cuba, Burma, Eritrea, and Uzbekistan.
CPJ reported that journalists are detained worldwide under a range of charges:
Antistate allegations such as subversion, divulging state secrets, and acting against national interests are the most common charge used to imprison journalists worldwide, CPJ found. About 59 percent of journalists in the census are jailed under these charges, many of them by the Chinese and Cuban governments.
About 13 percent of jailed journalists face no formal charge at all. The tactic is used by countries as diverse as Eritrea, Israel, Iran, the United States, and Uzbekistan, where journalists are being held in open-ended detentions without due process.
Violations of censorship rules, the next most common charge, are applied in about 10 percent of cases. Criminal defamation charges are filed in about 7 percent of cases, while charges of ethnic or religious insult are lodged in another 4 percent. Two journalists are jailed for filing what authorities consider to be “false” news.
The United States is on the list because it has detained dozens of journalists in Iraq without charge or due process since the war begin.
