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MANILA, Philippines — A new year may have arrived, but the tide has not yet turned for at least 547 journalists — including a Filipino reporter — around the world who remain in prison for doing their job.
This is what the French media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières or RSF) revealed as the organization continues to call for their release and to urge authoritarian governments to stop the legal harassment of media workers.
“Each journalist in prison is by definition a journalist prevented from working. It’s also a journalist who will be intimidated in the future. And it’s hundreds or even thousands of colleagues feeling a threat hanging over their head,” said RSF Secretary-General Christophe Deloire.
According to the group’s year-end roundup, at least one journalist has been detained in connection with their work in 86 countries for the last five years.
RSF said that while 2022 was a “record year” in terms of the number, totaling around 569 journalists detained, “imprisonment continues to be widely used to combat press freedom.”
It said at least 779 journalists were jailed at some point in 2023, with 547 currently in prison or under house arrest in a total of 45 countries. The prison sentences passed on journalists this year ranged from a week to 20 years.
Biggest jailer
China continues to be the world’s biggest jailer of journalists, with 121 reporters currently detained. Myanmar, whose civilian government was taken over by the junta in 2021, is second with 69.
Myanmar also imposed the longest jail term against a journalist that year when it sentenced photojournalist Sai Zaw Thaike to 20 years in prison on a range of charges including “disinformation” and “sedition.”
Equally devastating was the number of Palestinian journalists who were arrested and detained by Israeli forces since Hamas’ attack on Tel Aviv on Oct. 7 last year.
As of Dec. 31, 2023, about 34 were detained — mostly without charge or trial — on top of the 76 journalists who were killed by the Israeli military since the start of the war.
In the Philippines, where broadcast journalists Cris Bunduquin and Juan Jumalon were killed last year, two reporters are still or were detained this year. This is independent of the other forms of attacks suffered by Filipino journalists, who face the risk of Red-tagging, harassment, legal intimidation, and physical violence simply for doing their jobs.
Still in detention is Frenchie Mae Cumpio, a journalist from Tacloban City who was arrested on Feb. 7, 2020, during a series of raids on what the military said were communist safe houses. She was charged with illegal possession of firearms, a nonbailable offense.
At the time, Cumpio was a writer for the online alternative news site Eastern Vista, where she wrote about, among others, land reform and displacement issues, farmers’ killings in Eastern Samar, inequality, and other human rights issues.
Last August, Visayas-based Jose Rizal Pajares of Radyo Natin was detained after he accessed the Iriga City police station’s blotter supposedly without proper authorization.
He was subjected to an informal investigation before being temporarily released two days later, with his outlet paying his bail of P10,000.