At least 387 people working in the media industry around the world had been imprisoned by December 1 of this year, the German office of the press freedom NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF) announced in its annual report on Monday. Five countries were responsible for over half of all convictions: China led the pack with 117 jailed journalists, followed by Saudi Arabia (34), Egypt (30), Vietnam (28) and Syria (27). While the majority of imprisoned press workers were still men, the number of women arrested in 2020 increased by a third to 42.

Since the outbreak of the global coronavirus pandemic early in the year, over 130 members of the press, be they journalists or otherwise, have been arrested for reporting on the crisis. Some 14 of those were still in jail at the time of the report's publication, said the report. Reporters Without Borders gave particular attention to Belarus, where at least 370 journalists have been arrested in the wake of the contested presidential election on August 9. Although most of those were released after a short period, the crackdown on journalists represents a reduction in press freedom.

The report also highlighted the detention of the Australian WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, currently in Belmarsh high-security prison in the UK. RSF claimed that the conditions had become much worse following a coronavirus outbreak in the prison and that Assange had been placed in de facto isolation. The report expressed concern for the health of those imprisoned journalists who have not received proper medical attention during the pandemic and who have been subjected to the psychological effects of increased isolation. Five journalists were facing death sentences as of December 1, one of whom — Iranian journalist Ruhollah Zam — was executed on December 12. The other four were in the custody of the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

RSF counted 54 media workers who had been kidnapped in Syria, Iraq and Yemen; some of them have not been heard from in years. Another four journalists disappeared under unexplained circumstances in 2020 — one in Iraq, one in Congo, one in Mozambique and one in Peru. The NGO began issuing its yearly report in 1995. It includes cases of journalists and other professionals working in the field of journalism. The compilers only include data if it can be carefully confirmed, which sometimes leads to certain countries, such as Turkey, showing lower numbers than reported elsewhere.

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