In China, 127 journalists under detention for covering sensitive topics: Report

Reporters Without Borders, an international non-profit organisation that aims to safeguard the right to information, dubbed China the “world’s biggest captor of journalists” as it claimed that the country is holding over a score of media workers under detention.

Those journalists have been detained for reporting and publishing content deemed “sensitive” by the ruling Communist Party, the watchdog also informed in its latest report titled ‘An unprecedented RSF investigation: The Great Leap Backwards of Journalism in China’.

“At least 127 journalists (professional and non-professional) are currently detained by the regime,” it said in the report. “The simple act of investigating a “sensitive” topic or publishing censored information can result in years of detention in unsanitary prisons, where ill-treatment can lead to death,” the international body added.

More than half of those include 71 Uyghur journalists, according to the report. Since 2016, in the name of the “fight against terrorism”, the Beijing regime has been conducting a violent campaign against the Uyghurs.

The report elucidated how the Chinese government is forcing journalists to become the mouthpiece of their regime. According to the report, journalists need to undergo 90-hour annual training partly focusing on Xi Jinping’s “Thought” in order to receive and renew their press cards.

Journalists are already required to download the Study Xi, strengthen the country propaganda application that can collect their personal data, as per the report.

In 2020, China’s intimidation of foreign reporters, based on surveillance and visa blackmail, forced 18 of them to leave the country, it also said.

In the same year, the Chinese Communist Party also arrested “at least ten journalists and online commentators for the simple act of informing the public about the Covid-19 crisis in Wuhan,” the Reporters Without Borders also said. To this date, two of them, Zhang Zhan and Fang Bin, are still under detention in China.

The Chinese Communist Party has long kept a tight grip on its press and flow of information to its public. However, some press freedom groups say the ruling Chinese Communist Party has tightened control over media since Chinese President Xi Jinping took office in 2012.

In February this year, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China (FCCC) said China used coronavirus prevention measures, intimidation and visa curbs to limit foreign reporting in 2020, citing responses to an annual survey of correspondents and interviews with bureau chiefs.

The watchdog also stated that the government has increased the number of taboo topics for China. “Not only those typically deemed “sensitive” – such as Tibet, Taiwan or corruption – are subject to censorship, but also natural disasters, the #MeToo movement or even recognition of health professionals during the Covid-19 crisis,” it said