China is world’s biggest jailer of journalists, says RSF report

A report said that at least 127 journalists are currently detained in China, the “world’s biggest captor of journalists”, where President Xi Jinping has created a “nightmare” of media oppression worthy of the Mao Zedong-era.  China continues to take internet censorship, surveillance and propaganda to “unprecedented levels”, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), making it one of the world’s worst countries for journalists. In its annual press freedom index, the global watchdog also highlighted an increase in repression and attacks on journalists worldwide during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The report quoted RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire as saying that China was a country in the midst of a “frantic race backwards” as Chinese citizens continue to lose press freedom. Titled “The Great Leap Backwards of Journalism in China,”, the Paris-based RSF said the report reveals the “…extent of the regime’s campaign of repression against the right to information”. The report indicates how Beijing views journalism - not as a tool to provide information to the public to make informed decisions but as an instrument of state propaganda. The 42-page report listed how Chinese authorities used the fight against terrorism as a pretext to detain Uighur journalists reporting on Xinjiang where at least million from minority communities have been detained in high-security camps, said to be “vocational training institutes” by the government.

The index examines the press freedom situation in 180 countries and territories, and RSF said its data showed that journalism is “totally blocked or seriously impeded” in nearly three-quarters of the countries evaluated, making it even harder for people to access proper information at a time of a health emergency. Aside from China, the four countries at the bottom of the ranking are Djibouti, Turkmenistan, North Korea and Eritrea. Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Costa Rica were ranked highest for press freedom. “Journalism is the best vaccine against disinformation,”  Deloire said in a statement accompanying the report