/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/ASMFNXGOGQHXWHEC3B6JPHC4HA.jpg)
This has been a terrible year for journalism in the world.
Prison and murder have been lavished on those who dedicate themselves to the business of informing their fellow citizens.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalism (CPJ), an independent organization based in New York and founded in 1981, 293 journalists have been imprisoned worldwide, thirteen more than in 2020, 19 were killed and five more died in conflict zones. or in suspicious circumstances.
Maria Ressa, Filipino journalist, and Eugeni Muratov, Russian journalist and director of
Novaya Gazeta,
They dedicated their speeches at the reception of the Nobel Peace Prize, on December 10, to the murdered journalists and those who suffer persecution, and recalled, among many others, the murders of the Russian Anna Politkóvskaya, the Saudi Jamal Khashoggi and the Maltese Daphne Caruana Galizia and the recent imprisonment of Hong Kong press businessman Jimmy Lai, following the government shutdown of his
Apple Daily
newspaper
.
CPJ's annual report leaves no room for doubt about the countries most bitter in the sinister task of removing journalists from public life, or sometimes simply from life. This is the sixth consecutive year in which more than 250 jailed journalists have been counted. The largest prison is China, where 50 professionals are in prison. It is followed by Myanmar, with 26 counted and the suspicion that many more have been arrested. Egypt, Vietnam, Belarus and Turkey follow, also with around two dozen professionals in their prisons. Russia and Saudi Arabia keep at least 14 journalists locked up and highlight the setbacks in countries such as Ethiopia and Eritrea or India. There are 24 journalists killed in the exercise of their profession in 2021 in the world, of which 19 have been directly assassinated.Mexico holds the unfortunate record, with nine journalists killed, followed by India, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Ressa and Muratov, awarded for their defense of freedom of expression and their denunciations of abuses of power in the Philippines and in Russia respectively, represent, according to the Nobel committee, “all journalists who defend these ideals in a world in which democracy and freedom of the press face increasingly adverse conditions ”and in which“ free, independent and fact-based journalism serves to protect against abuse of power, lies and war propaganda ”. Without verified facts there is no truth and without truth there is no trust, there is no shared reality, nor the possibility of democracy. Under these conditions, the fight against climate change or Covid becomes an impossible task. This is the central argument of Maria Ressa in her Nobel acceptance speech,equivalent to Morotov's defense of journalism as an antidote to tyranny.
More information
China is "the biggest jailer in the world" against the press, according to Reporters Without Borders
