China, Israel, and Myanmar are the “world’s three worst offenders” for imprisoning journalists in 2024, according to the Committee to Project Journalists.
The organization’s report stated that while other egregious offenders, such as China, Myanmar, Belarus, and Russia, “routinely rank among the top jailers of journalists,” Israel rarely appeared in CPJ censuses before the October 7 massacre.
According to the report, Israel rose to second place as it “tried to silence coverage from the occupied Palestinian territories,” adding that “all detained by Israel on the day of CPJ’s census are Palestinian.” The CPJ report said 43 Palestinian journalists were held in Israeli custody as of December 1.
The report did not take into account the fact that Israel has regularly said it discovered journalists either embedded with Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists, linked alleged journalists directly as members of terror groups, or killed terrorists whose journalistic ties are later revealed.
However, the report did not focus exclusively on Israel but rather on the general increase of authoritarian arrests of journalists across the world, criticizing the authorities in China, Myanmar, Russia, and Belarus, respectively, to an equal extent.
“At least 10 journalists” are held in administrative detention centers where prisoners are subjected to “inhuman conditions,” the report added.
Lawyers who visited some of the detainees told CPJ that Israeli authorities informed the journalists that they were arrested because they had contacted individuals whom Israel wanted information about.
Such arrests are “symptomatic of Israel’s broader effort to prevent coverage of its actions in Gaza,” according to the report. CPJ also reported that Israel banned foreign correspondents from entering Gaza and banned Al Jazeera.
Other CPJ reports discussing Israel
CPJ program director Carlos Martinez de la Serna was quoted in a report titled “Attacks, arrests, threats, censorship: The high risks of reporting the Israel-Gaza war” that “Journalists have been paying the highest price – their lives – for their reporting” since the start of the Israel-Hamas War.
CPJ stated in the report that IDF spokespeople repeatedly tell media outlets that IDF policy does not deliberately target journalists and added that IDF reportedly told news agencies that they cannot guarantee the safety of journalists.
A separate January 17 report by CPJ stated that the journalists’ attorneys claimed their arrests by Israel were in retaliation for their journalism and commentary.
The January 17 report notes that 30 journalists, including three held by the Palestinian Authority, have been released since their arrests over the last 15 months.
The CPJ is an American nonprofit NGO based in New York.