(TibetanReview.net, May04’24) —The People’s Republic of China is the world’s largest prison for journalists, and its Communist party-state conducts a campaign of repression against journalism and the right to information worldwide, said Paris-based global press watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF), releasing its 2024 World Press Freedom Index on May 3.
Although China’s ranking has improved to 172nd out of 180 countries – compared to 179th last year – it is still the world’s largest jailer of journalists, with more than 100 currently detained, the group said. Those ranking below China include Bahrain, Vietnam, Turkmenistan, Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan, Syria, and Eritrea in that order, with the group’s analysis being based on political, economic, legislative, social, and security indicators.
The group has noted that the Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party sends a detailed notice to all media – all state-owned or controlled – every day that includes editorial guidelines and censored topics. The state-owned China Global Television Network (CGTN) and Radio China International (RCI) spread the regime’s propaganda all around the world.
This is because to the ruling regime, the media’s function is to be the party’s mouthpiece and to impart state propaganda. Independent journalists and bloggers who dare to report “sensitive” information are often placed under surveillance, harassed, detained, and, in some cases, tortured.
journalists with the state media are kept on a tight leash. Thy are required to download the “Study Xi, Strengthen the Country” propaganda application that can collect their personal data in order to receive and renew their press cards.
The group said that to further silence journalists, the government accuses them of “espionage”, “subversion”, or “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”, three “pocket crimes”, a term used by Chinese law experts to describe offences that are so broadly defined that they can be applied to almost any activity.
Besides, independent journalists can also be legally placed in solitary confinement for six months under “Residential Surveillance at a Designated Location” (“RSDL”) in China’s “black prisons”, where they are deprived of legal representation and may be subjected to torture.
The group accuses President Xi Jinping, in power since 2012, of having restored a media culture worthy of the Maoist era, in which freely accessing information has become a crime and to provide information an even greater crime.
While China’s state and privately-owned media are under the Communist Party’s ever-tighter control, the administration creates more and more obstacles for foreign reporters.
The Chinese regime uses surveillance, coercion, intimidation and harassment to keep independent journalists from reporting on issues it deems “sensitive”, the group said.
The report was released on the day designated by the United Nations as the World Press Freedom Day.