A total of 547 journalists globally have spent New Year’s Eve in prison, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), with some 779 jailed at some point in 2023.
China, Myanmar, Belarus, and Vietnam are the four biggest jailers of media personnel.
Between them, these countries hold more than half of the world’s imprisoned journalists, according to an RSF release to the Ghana Public Media.
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The sentences passed on women journalists broke records in 2023, with the victims, including Elaheh Mohammadi and Niloofar Hamedi, sentenced to 12 and 13 years in prison, respectively, in Iran.
They included Maryna Zolatava, Liudmila Chekina and Valeriya Kastsiuhova, icons of independent journalism in Belarus, whose sentences ranged from 1012 years.
They included Burundi’s Floriane Irangabiye, one of the few women journalists jailed in sub-Saharan Africa, who was given a 10-year sentence.
Reporters Without Borders continues to deploy appropriate strategies to help obtain freedom.
Fewer journalists have been imprisoned this year than last. We will continue to fight tirelessly every day, assisted by our correspondents in more than 130 countries, to free these women and men who have been jailed simply for trying to tell us what is happening.
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Anne Bocande, Editorial Director of RSF, said, “Each journalist in prison is a journalist prevented from working. It’s also a journalist who will be intimidated in the future. And it’s hundreds or even thousands of colleagues feeling the threat of imprisonment hanging over them.”
In Ghana, the journalist Noah Dameh has been remanded in custody.
Dameh was summoned in May 2022 upon a defamation complaint by ElectroChem Ghana Limited (EGL), a salt mining company based in Ada. The complaint followed a Facebook publication in which the journalist accused the police of abusing the rights of one Benjamin Anim by chaining him to his hospital bed.
He also claimed the abuse was on the orders of Daniel Mckorley, the owner of EGL.
In December 2022, the Tema Magistrate Court dismissed the case only for the police to re-arrest Dameh on false publication charges. He was remanded in custody on March 30, 2023, at the request of the prosecutor who said his surety had failed to produce him in court on three previous occasions.
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“So, millions’ right to news and information could be violated. Behind these statistics, there are human tragedies and political consequences.
Together, let’s keep helping those who risk their freedom by trying to keep us abreast of developments in their countries. Your support is essential, and I thank you for it.”