A total of 23 journalists remained jailed in connection with their work in Sub-Saharan Africa, two-thirds held without charge, according to the annual report released of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Thirteen journalists were held in Eritrea, which was the fourth jailer of journalists worldwide behind China, Cuba and Burma. The survey found more Internet journalists jailed worldwide today than journalists working in any other medium.
CPJ's survey found 125 journalists in all behind bars on December 1, a decrease of two from the 2007 tally. China continued to be world's worst jailer of journalists, a dishonour it has held for 10 consecutive years. Cuba, Burma, Eritrea, and Uzbekistan round out the top five jailers from among the 29 nations that imprison journalists. Each of the top five nations has persistently placed among the world's worst in detaining journalists.
Eritrea's secret prisons held but four of 17 journalists worldwide held in secret locations. Eritrean authorities have refused to disclose the whereabouts, legal status, or health of any of the journalists they have been detaining for several years. Unconfirmed reports have suggested the deaths of at least three of these journalists while in custody, but the government has refused to even say whether the detainees are alive or dead.
Two other Eritrean journalists were being held in secret in neighbouring Ethiopia, while the government of the Gambia has declined to provide information on the July 2006 arrest of journalist "Chief" Ebrima Manneh. Many international observers have called on authorities to free Manneh, who was jailed for trying to publish a report critical of Gambian President Yahya Jammeh.
About 13 per cent of jailed journalists worldwide, including those imprisoned in Eritrea, Ethiopia and the Gambia, face no formal charge at all. Countries as diverse as Israel, Iran, the United States, and Uzbekistan also used this tactic of open-ended detention without due process. In Sub-Saharan Africa, 16 out of 23 journalists were behind bars without charge.
Anti-state 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 per cent of journalists in the census are jailed under these charges, many of them by the Chinese and Cuban governments, but also by countries like Senegal, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ivory Coast.
The survey found that 45 per cent of all media workers jailed worldwide are bloggers, Web-based reporters, or online editors. Online journalists represent the largest professional category for the first time in CPJ's prison census. Fiftysix online journalists are jailed worldwide, a tally that surpasses the number of print journalists for the first time.
This trend applied in Sub-Saharan Africa where at least one online journalist remained imprisoned as of December 1, 2008.
"Online journalism has started to change the media landscape in Sub-Saharan Africa and eased access to communication," said CPJ's Programme Coordinator Tom Rhodes. "But some governments have reacted adversely to this trend and a growing pattern of harassment of online journalists has developed."
