(TibetanReview.net, May01’24) —China, the world’s top jailer of journalists, also has the largest number of writers as well in its prisons, according to the 2023 Freedom to Write index, a report compiled by Pen America, published on May 1. The numbers do not include those censored or who exercise self-censorship while the actual figures are bound to be much higher than those included in the reports.
With the total number of people imprisoned globally for exercising their freedom of expression estimated to be at least 339, China accounts for nearly one-third of the world’s jailed writers. There are 107 people behind bars because of their published statements in China, more than any other country on the index, theguardian.com May 1 cited the report as saying.
The report said this is the first time Pen America’s count of writers jailed in China has surpassed 100. Other databases, such as the Reporters Without Borders’ tally of journalists and media workers detained in China, had passed that milestone in 2020.
The index includes “online commentators” who are defined as bloggers and people who used social media as their main platform for expression.
The actual number of those arrested or detained in China, as elsewhere, could be much higher.
James Tager, the director of research at Pen America, has said: “Not all people arrested for their online expression will find themselves represented here. It is certain that the true toll of all those who are punished for their expression in China is far higher than the numbers represented here, and that is not even to count those who are censored or who censor themselves for fear of formal punishment.”
In China, people detained by the authorities for their online expression are typically arrested under suspicion of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” – a charge that even a senior political delegate has said is too vague and could be used arbitrarily by the police, the report noted.
For example, citizen journalist Zhang Zhan has been in prison since 2020 after she was arrested for reporting on the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic in Wuhan.
Commenting on government’s Covid policies also attracted imprisonment. For example, Sun Qing was arrested for “inciting subversion of state power” in May 2020 after posting critical statements on WeChat and X, then known as Twitter.
Any remark by ethnic Tibetans and Uyghurs seen as critical of the Chinese government or its policies also attract arrest and jail terms for alleged separatism. Gulnisa Imin, a Uyghur poet, is serving a 17-and-a-half-year sentence on the grounds that her poetry, the most famous of which was inspired by One Thousand and One Nights, promotes “separatism”, the report noted.