{"id":1101801,"date":"2021-12-09T09:13:43","date_gmt":"2021-12-09T14:13:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1101801"},"modified":"2021-12-09T09:13:47","modified_gmt":"2021-12-09T14:13:47","slug":"olympics-host-china-ranked-the-worlds-worst-jailer-of-journalists-for-3rd-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/olympics-host-china-ranked-the-worlds-worst-jailer-of-journalists-for-3rd-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Olympics Host China Ranked the World&#039;s Worst Jailer of Journalists for 3rd Year"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Folympics-host-china-ranked-the-worlds-worst-jailer-of-journalists-for-3rd-year%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1101801&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p class=\"subheading\">The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) <a href=\"https:\/\/cpj.org\/reports\/2021\/12\/number-of-journalists-behind-bars-reaches-global-high\/\">named<\/a> China the world\u2019s worst jailer of journalists on Thursday, the third year in a row that the host of the upcoming 2022 Winter Olympics has taken the title.<\/p>\n<p>The organization called 2021 \u201can especially bleak year for defenders of press freedom,\u201d noting that it managed to confirm the arrests of 293 journalists, a record high for the group and unseating a record made only in 2020. It also noted the appearance of several new countries at the top of the list. Most dramatic in its change in handling media is Myanmar, which the CPJ noted had zero journalists imprisoned in 2020 but came in second place to China this year.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<p>In China, the CPJ listed growing persecution of journalists in formerly free Hong Kong, the disappearance of Chinese journalists attempting to document the government\u2019s poor handling of the Chinese coronavirus pandemic at home, and the ongoing genocide of the Uyghur people in East Turkistan among aggravating factors in the Chinese Communist Party\u2019s attacks on freedom of the press.<\/p>\n<p>The group identified two cases in particular worth alarm: the imprisonment of Jimmy Lai, founder of Hong Kong\u2019s&nbsp;<em>Apple Daily<\/em> and staunch anti-communist; and Zhang Zhan, a citizen journalist who disappeared into Communist Party custody in 2020 after filming the disastrous handling of the Chinese coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, where the virus originated, in early 2020.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEight Hong Kong media figures, including Jimmy Lai, founder of Apple Daily and Next Digital and CPJ\u2019s 2021 Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Awardee, were jailed in a stark blow to the city\u2019s already embattled independent press. Some could face life in prison,\u201d The CPJ noted. \u201cOn mainland China [China\u2019s true borders not including territories it wrongly claims, like Taiwan and Hong Kong], others face a litany of vague Orwellian charges.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cFreelance video journalist Zhang Zhan is serving four years for \u2018picking quarrels and stirring up trouble,&#8217;\u201d the organization observed.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_14160122\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" readability=\"38\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Jimmy-Lai-Arrested-in-Hong-Kong.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-14160122\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Jimmy-Lai-Arrested-in-Hong-Kong.jpg\" alt=\"Jimmy Lai\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai, who founded local newspaper Apple Daily, gets into a car after being arrested by police officers at his home in Hong Kong, Monday, Aug. 10, 2020. (AP Photo)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Persecution in Hong Kong escalated precipitously in 2020 with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/asia\/2020\/05\/28\/china-passes-national-security-law-suffocating-hong-kong\/\">passage<\/a> of the \u201cnational security law\u201d in Beijing. Under \u201cOne Country, Two Systems,\u201d the policy that governs Hong Kong, laws passed in Beijing do not apply to the residents of the formerly autonomous city, but the Hong Kong police began enforcing the law, anyway.<\/p>\n<p>The \u201cnational security law\u201d demands a minimum sentence of ten years in prison for anyone found guilty of \u201cterrorism,\u201d \u201cinciting secession,\u201d \u201cinciting foreign interference,\u201d or \u201csubversion of state power.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Police have been liberal in interpreting the last two, on one occasion <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/national-security\/2020\/07\/01\/hong-kong-police-detain-man-for-celebrating-liverpools-premier-league-title\/\">arresting<\/a> a Liverpool soccer fan for \u201cinciting foreign interference\u201d and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/the-media\/2021\/06\/24\/hundreds-hong-kong-pay-tribute-apple-daily-final-issue-sells-million-copies\/\">shutting down<\/a>&nbsp;<em>Apple Daily<\/em> for a variety of charges under both the last two \u201ccrimes.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B3\" class=\"a8d adSo\"><\/figure>\n<p>Lai, 73, is personally <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/asia\/2020\/12\/11\/hong-kong-anti-communist-media-mogul-jimmy-lai-facing-decade-in-prison\/\">facing<\/a> at least a decade in prison under the \u201cforeign interference\u201d allegation. He turned 74 years old on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>CPJ reported identifying 50 journalists in prison in China for their work. The organization only counts individuals whose whereabouts it can confirm and who have been arrested explicitly for engaging in journalism.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<div id=\"attachment_19063834\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" readability=\"38\"><a href=\"https:\/\/media.breitbart.com\/media\/2021\/12\/GettyImages-53326384.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-19063834\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/GettyImages-53326384-1024x683-1.jpg\" alt width=\"990\" height=\"660\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Activists sell T-shirts of imprisoned senior reporter of the Singapore Straits Times, Ching Cheong, prior to a commemoration of the 04 June 1989 Beijing Tiananmen Square massacre in Victoria Park, Hong Kong, 04 June 2005. (MIKE CLARKE\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cThe prison census accounts only for journalists in government custody and does not include those who have disappeared or are held captive by non-state actors. These cases are classified as \u2018missing\u2019 or \u2018abducted,&#8217;\u201d CPJ noted. \u201cCPJ includes only those journalists who it has confirmed have been imprisoned in relation to their work.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While ensuring that all those counted are confirmed cases of media persecution, this means that CPJ\u2019s count is likely significantly lower than the actual number of journalists behind bars around the world. China regularly disappears anyone considered a threat to the Communist Party with no explanation, making their arrests impossible to confirm.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B4\" class=\"a8d adSo\"><\/figure>\n<p>China\u2019s extreme persecution of journalists joins a growing number of human rights atrocities to its name that include the aforementioned <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/asia\/2021\/08\/28\/exclusive-uyghur-group-olympics-will-encourage-china-to-conduct-more-genocide\/\">genocide<\/a>; the torture and disappearance of political dissidents; a systematic effort to erase ethnic minority cultures in places like occupied <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/asia\/2020\/09\/23\/study-china-has-forced-500000-tibetans-into-labor-camps-this-year\/\">Tibet<\/a>; crushing restrictions on nearly every <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/national-security\/2021\/04\/21\/report-religion-in-china-suffers-most-serious-crackdown-since-the-cultural-revolution\/\">religion<\/a> present in the country; and widespread, state-sponsored <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/asia\/2021\/06\/18\/china-launches-campaign-slave-picked-cotton-vogue\/\">slavery<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Despite these crimes, all of them extensively documented by groups like CPJ, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has refused to move the 2022 Beijing Games, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/news\/olympics-vp-says-china-human-rights-not-within-ioc-remit\/\">insisting<\/a> that it is \u201cnot a world government\u201d and has no power to avoid honoring China with the prestigious title of Olympics host.<\/p>\n<p>Prior to China, Turkey under authoritarian Islamist Recep Tayyip Erdogan won the ignominious superlative of world\u2019s most severe persecutor of journalists from 2016 to 2019. The alleged failed coup against Erdogan in 2016 prompted his regime to shut down over 100 media outlets and usurp authority over several formerly independent outlets, like the newspapers&nbsp;<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/news\/erdogan-ally-set-to-buy-top-turkey-media-group\/\">Hurriyet<\/a>&nbsp;<\/em>and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/todayszamancom\"><em>Zaman<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>A combination of legal action and violent mob <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/national-security\/2015\/09\/09\/islamists-storm-turkeys-hurriyet-newspaper-a-second-time\/\">attacks<\/a> on media offices effectively eliminated the national free press in Turkey, so 2021 was an uncharacteristically quiet year for Turkey, which dropped to the number six ranking.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_15948770\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" readability=\"37\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/GettyImages-1201743636.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-15948770\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/GettyImages-1201743636.png\" alt=\"A pro-democracy activist (C) from HK Alliance holds a placard of missing citizen journalist Fang Bin, as she protests outside the Chinese liaison office in Hong Kong on February 19, 2020, in protest against Beijings detention of prominent anti-corruption activist Xu Zhiyong. - Police in China have arrested Xu Zhiyong, a prominent anti-corruption activist who had been criticising President Xi Jinpings handling of the COVID-19 coronavirus. (Photo by ISAAC LAWRENCE \/ AFP) (Photo by ISAAC LAWRENCE\/AFP via Getty Images)\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>A pro-democracy activist (C) from HK Alliance holds a placard of missing citizen journalist Fang Bin, as she protests outside the Chinese liaison office in Hong Kong on February 19, 2020, in protest against Beijings detention of prominent anti-corruption activists. (ISAAC LAWRENCE\/AFP via Getty)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The Chinese coronavirus pandemic, which originated in China and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/asia\/2021\/06\/11\/9-ways-unrelated-wuhan-lab-china-created-pandemic\/\">became<\/a> a pandemic directly as a result of Communist Party policies, seems to have exacerbated the persecution of journalists around the world.&nbsp;In 2019, when China first took the top spot, CPJ documented 250 arrests, less than the 255 arrested in 2018. Prior to this year\u2019s record, CPJ <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/national-security\/2019\/12\/11\/china-dethrones-turkey-as-worlds-worst-jailer-of-journalists\/\">logged<\/a> a record high in 2016 with 273 imprisoned journalists \u2013 a direct result of Erdogan\u2019s crackdown on media after the alleged failed coup against him in July of that year.<\/p>\n<p>In other words, a trend of declining persecution abruptly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/asia\/2020\/12\/15\/china-leads-world-jailing-journalists-second-year-running\/\">ended<\/a> following the pandemic and yielded two straight years of record-high arrests.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn a world preoccupied with COVID-19 and trying to prioritize issues like climate change, repressive governments are clearly aware that public outrage at human rights abuses is blunted and democratic governments have less appetite for political or economic retaliation,\u201d CPJ observed.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Follow Frances Martel on&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/francesimartel\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener external\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/francesimartel\/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1639136181011000&amp;usg=AOvVaw01QkAs2b6w46YdNSlsvgYu\">Facebook<\/a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/francesmartel\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener external\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/twitter.com\/francesmartel&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1639136181011000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0MNoJAJjXQ_v5927Pca0vB\">Twitter.<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) named China the world\u2019s worst jailer of journalists on Thursday, the third year in a row that the host of the upcoming 2022 Winter &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1101801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1101801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1101801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1101801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1101801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1101801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1101801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}