Journalists Arrested and Jailed for Covering COVID-19

At least 387 journalists and media workers were jailed worldwide as of Dec. 1 this year, with 130 arrested for reporting on the COVID-19 crisis.

The figures were compiled by the German office of the press freedom NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and announced in its annual report, said Deutsche Welle.

According to the report, China imprisoned 117 journalists, followed by Saudi Arabia (34), Egypt (30), Vietnam (28), and Syria (27).

The report came a few days after the International Federation of Journalists reported 42 reporters and media workers were killed this year for doing their jobs, led by Mexico with 13.

The profession has become more deadly since US President Donald Trump, who has a controversial relationship with the press, took office and in 2017 allegedly asked then-FBI Director James Comey to put journalists in jail for publishing classified information.

Trump also has pushed the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange from a London jail to face espionage charges in the US for revealing the killing of civilians and two Reuters journalists by an American forces attack in Iraq.

Assange's plight was the most high-profile case as he remains in a prison in poor health, facing charges for what his supporters said amounts to criminalizing acts of journalism.

Of the journalists arrested for their coverage of COVID-19, which some authoritarian governments were accused of using as an excuse to consolidate power and curb critical reporting, 14 were still imprisoned at the time of the report.

"The high number of imprisoned journalists worldwide throws a harsh spotlight on the current threats to press freedom," said Katja Gloger, the head of the RSF German office, the news site reported.

She said too many governments were using the pandemic to push agendas of trying to muzzle the media, including over reports of wrongdoing and questionable contracts to fund health measures.

"Behind every single one of these cases is the fate of a person who faces criminal trials, long imprisonment and often mistreatment because he did not submit to censorship and repression," she added.

One of the highlighted cases was that of investigative journalist Hopewell Chin'ono from Zimbabwe, who was arrested for reporting on the government's sale of overpriced COVID-19 medication.

He was "brutally arrested," said Gloger's colleague Sylvie Ahrens-Urbanek, noting the reporter spent six weeks in jail as bail was repeatedly refused.

One of the most egregious examples of political censorship is Belarus, where protests were going on for months following the re-election of dictatorial President Alexander Lukashenko.

At least 370 journalists were arrested for covering the demonstrations that illustrated Lukashenko's harsh tactics, including the beating of protesters and state agents scooping them off streets.

RSF said five journalists were still facing death sentences after Iranian Ruhollah Zam, whose site covered 2017 anti-government protests, was hung on December 12, with the other four remaining in the custody of Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Another 54 media workers have been kidnapped in Syria, Iraq and Yemen; some of them have not been heard from in years, including award-winning American reporter Austin Tice, a former US Marine Corps officer taken in Iraq in 2012, with the US government offering a $1 million reward for information leading to his recovery.

Another four journalists disappeared under unexplained circumstances in 2020 — one in Iraq, one in Congo, one in Mozambique and one in Peru.