Countries imprisoning journalists in 2024
Countries with deaths in 2024
Attacks on the Press in 2024
War, authoritarian repression, and political and economic instability continued to put journalists’ freedom and lives at risk in 2024. Last year, the Committee to Protect Journalists’ annual prison census documented more than 100 new jailings of journalists for their work.
Interactive map by Geoff McGhee for CPJ
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War, authoritarian repression, and political and economic instability continued to put journalists’ freedom and lives at risk in 2024. Last year, the Committee to Protect Journalists’ annual prison census documented more than 100 new jailings of journalists for their work.
Interactive map by Geoff McGhee for CPJ
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Journalists imprisoned in 2024
Four of the top five countries routinely rank among the top jailers of journalists: China, Myanmar, Belarus, and Russia. Israel catapulted to second-place last year despite being a multiparty parliamentary democracy that rarely appeared in CPJ’s annual prison census before the 2023 start of the war in Gaza.
This map shows the countries imprisoning journalists in 2024.
Journalists imprisoned in 2024
The year’s top five jailers of journalists are China, Myanmar, Belarus, Russia, and Vietnam, respectively. More than 65% of imprisoned journalists in the census face anti-state charges, such as false news and terrorism, in retaliation for their work. Many in the census are jailed without being told of charges against them, and often face cruel and dangerous prison conditions.
This map shows the countries imprisoning journalists in 2024.
Read about our methodologyImprisonments by country
Click on countries in the list at left to see journalists imprisoned in 2024.
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Imprisonments by country
Click on countries in the list below to see journalists imprisoned in 2024.
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China - #1 in 2024
China has routinely appeared in CPJ’s annual prison census as one of the world’s top jailers of journalists. The 50 recorded as being behind bars on December 1, 2024, are likely an undercount given Beijing’s pervasive censorship and mass surveillance that often leaves families too intimidated to talk about a relative’s arrest. Their circumstances are a stark reflection of China’s intolerance for independent voices. CPJ’s 2024 data indicates that Beijing is ramping up the use of anti-state charges to target journalists.
Israel - #2 in 2024
CPJ documented 43 Palestinian journalists in Israeli custody on December 1, 2024 – more than double the number held in the 2023 census, when Israel ranked for the first time as one of the world’s worst jailers of journalists. Arrests in the wake of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel are its highest since CPJ began keeping records in 1992. It is the first time Israel has ranked as the world’s second-worst jailer of journalists.
Myanmar - #3 in 2024
Myanmar held 35 journalists at the time of CPJ’s 2024 census as the military regime continued its media crackdown following the 2021 coup that ousted a democratically elected government. The junta has incarcerated and sentenced dozens of journalists among the more than 28,000 political prisoners detained since it seized power. Jailed members of the media are typically tried by military tribunals, denied legal representation, and given multi-year sentences under broad anti-state laws such as terrorism, false news, or incitement.
Belarus - #4 in 2024
With 31 journalists in jail on December 1, 2024, Belarus is the worst jailer in Europe and Central Asia for the second consecutive year. Despite several waves of presidential pardons by Aleksandr Lukashenko, which included three members of the press, Belarusian journalists are continually harassed, detained, and sentenced to years in prison, most often over their work for media outlets that authorities have labeled as “extremist.” The Belarusian government continued to retaliate against journalists who covered protests calling for Lukashenko’s resignation after his disputed 2020 election. Five journalists detained in connection with those demonstrations are serving sentences of 10 years or longer.
Russia — #5 in 2024
Russia held 30 journalists behind bars at the time of CPJ’s census. Almost half are Ukrainian, victims of Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea and Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Ukrainian journalist Viktoria Roshchina died in Russian custody in September – a grim reminder of the plight of journalists detained incommunicado in Russian-held territories on undisclosed charges. Russian occupiers have also targeted the Crimean Tatar community in Ukraine’s Crimea.
Methodology
Imprisonments
CPJ's annual 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 “missing” or “abducted.”
CPJ’s list is a snapshot of those incarcerated at 12:01 a.m. on December 1, 2023. It does not include the many journalists imprisoned and released throughout the year. CPJ includes only those journalists who it has confirmed have been imprisoned in relation to their work. Journalists remain on CPJ’s list until the organization determines with reasonable certainty that they have been released or have died in custody.
CPJ maintains a database of all journalists killed since 1992 and those who have gone missing or are imprisoned for their work.
A note on the map
The map reflects that CPJ holds Russian authorities responsible for press freedom violations in Ukraine’s Crimea after Russia's 2014 annexation of the peninsula led to de facto control of its media sphere.
