The woes of journalism
Published: Monday | December 28, 2009
The Philippines accounted for almost half the journalists killed with 32 confirmed dead. Leading up to the New Year, The Gleaner will highlight journalists imprisoned and killed in 2009.
The CPJ is an independent, nonprofit organisation founded in 1981. We promote press freedom worldwide by defending the rights of journalists to report the news without fear of reprisal.
2009 prison census
| China | 24 |
| Iran | 23 |
| Cuba | 22 |
| Eritrea | 19 |
| Burma | 9 |
| Uzbekistan | 7 |
| Azerbaijan | 6 |
| Ethiopia | 4 |
| Egypt | 3 |
| Tunisia | 2 |
| Yemen | 2 |
| Cambodia | 1 |
| Cameroon | 1 |
| Gambia | 1 |
| India | 1 |
| Iraq (in US custody) | 1 |
| Kazakhstan | 1 |
| Mauritania | 1 |
| Morocco | 1 |
| Russia | 1 |
| Saudi Arabia | 1 |
| Sri Lanka | 1 |
| Syria | 1 |
| Turkey | 1 |
| Venezuela | 1 |
| Vietnam | 1 |
CHINA Xu Zerong (David Tsui), freelance Imprisoned: June 24, 2000 Xu was serving a 13-year prison term on charges of "leaking state secrets" through his academic work on military history and "economic crimes" related to unauthorised publishing of foreign-policy issues. Some observers believed that his jailing might have been related to an article he wrote for the Hong Kong-based Yazhou Zhoukan (Asia Weekly) magazine revealing clandestine Chinese Communist Party support for a Malaysian insurgency in the 1950s and 1960s. Jin Haike, freelance Xu Wei, freelance Imprisoned: March 13, 2001 Jin and Xu were among four members of an informal discussion group called Xin Qingnian Xuehui (New Youth Study Group) who were detained and accused of "subverting state authority". Prosecutors cited online articles and essays on political and social reform as proof of their intent to overthrow the Communist Party leadership. Abdulghani Memetemin, freelance Imprisoned: July 26, 2002 Memetemin, a writer, teacher, and translator who had actively advocated for the Uighur ethnic group in the north-western Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, was detained in Kashgar, Xinjiang province, on charges of "leaking state secrets". Huang Jinqiu (Qing Shuijun, Huang Jin), freelance Imprisoned: September 13, 2003 Huang, a columnist for the United States-based website Boxun News, was arrested in Jiangsu province, and his family was not notified of his arrest for more than three months. On September 27, 2004, the Changzhou Intermediate People's Court sentenced him to 12 years in prison on charges of "subversion of state authority", plus four years' deprivation of political rights. The sentence was unusually harsh and appeared linked to his intention to form an opposition party. Kong Youping, freelance Imprisoned: December 13, 2003 Kong, an essayist and poet, was arrested in Anshan, Liaoning province. A former trade union official, he had written articles online that supported democratic reforms, appealed for the release of then-imprisoned Internet writer Liu Di, and called for a reversal of the government's "counterrevolutionary" ruling on the pro-democracy demonstrations of 1989. Shi Tao, freelance Imprisoned: November 24, 2004 Shi, the former editorial director of the Changsha-based newspaper Dangdai Shang Bao (Contemporary Trade News), was detained near his home in Taiyuan, Shanxi province,in November 2004. He was formally arrested and charged with "providing state secrets to foreigners" by sending an email on his Yahoo account to the US-based editor of the website Minzhu Luntan (Democracy Forum). In an anonymous email sent several months before his arrest, Shi transcribed his notes from local propaganda department instructions to his newspaper, which included directives on coverage of the Falun Gong and the upcoming 15th anniversary of the military crackdown on demonstrators at Tiananmen Square. Zheng Yichun, freelance Imprisoned: December 3, 2004 Zheng, a former professor, was a regular contributor to overseas news websites, including the US-based Epoch Times, which is affiliated with the banned religious movement Falun Gong. He wrote a series of editorials that directly criticised the Communist Party and its control of the media. Because of police warnings, Zheng's family remained silent about his detention in Yingkou, Liaoning province, until state media reported that he had been arrested on suspicion of inciting subversion Yang Tongyan (Yang Tianshui), freelance Imprisoned: December 23, 2005 Yang, commonly known by his pen name Yang Tianshui, was detained along with a friend in Nanjing, eastern China. He was tried on charges of "subverting state authority", and on May 17, 2006, the Zhenjiang Intermediate People's Court sentenced him to 12 years in prison. Guo Qizhen, freelance Imprisoned: May 12, 2006 Guo was detained as he prepared to join a hunger strike by the lawyer Gao Zhisheng, who was later jailed. Guo was formally arrested on charges related to his prolific writing for US-based Chinese-language websites Minzhu Luntan (Democracy Forum) and Epoch Times. The Cangzhou Intermediate People's Court tried Guo on charges of "inciting subversion of state authority" on September 12, 2006. He was convicted and sentenced to four years in prison, plus an additional three years' deprivation of political rights. Zhang Jianhong, freelance Imprisoned: September 6, 2006 The founder and editor of the popular news and literary website Aiqinhai (Aegean Sea) was taken from his home in Ningbo, in eastern China's Zhejiang province. In October 2006, Zhang was formally arrested on charges of "inciting subversion". He was sentenced to six years in prison by the Ningbo Intermediate People's Court in March 2007, followed by one year's deprivation of political rights. Yang Maodong (Guo Feixiong), freelance Imprisoned: September 14, 2006 Yang, commonly known by his pen name Guo Feixiong, was a prolific writer, activist, and legal analyst for the Beijing-based Shengzhe law firm. Police detained him in September 2006 after he reported and gave advice on a number of sensitive political cases facing the local government in his home province of Guangdong. Sun Lin, freelance Imprisoned: May 30, 2007 Nanjing-based reporter Sun was arrested, along with his wife, He Fang, on May 30, 2007, according to the US-based website Boxun News. Sun had previously documented harassment by authorities in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, as a result of his audio, video, and print reports for the banned Chinese-language news site. Boxun News said authorities confiscated a computer and video equipment from the couple at the time of their arrest. Qi Chonghuai, freelance Imprisoned: June 25, 2007 Qi and a colleague, Ma Shiping, criticised a local official in Shandong province in an article published June 8, 2007, on the website of the US-based Epoch Times, according to Qi's lawyer, Li Xiongbing. On June 14, the two posted photographs on Xinhua newsagency's anti-corruption Web forum showing a luxurious government building in the city of Tengzhou. Police in Tengzhou detained Ma on June 16 on charges of carrying a false press card. Qi, a journalist of 13 years, was arrested in his home in Jinan, the provincial capital, more than a week later, and charged with fraud and extortion, Li said. Qi was convicted and sentenced to four years in prison on May 13, 2008. LŸ Gengsong, freelance Imprisoned: August 24, 2007 The Public Security Bureau in Hangzhou, capital of eastern Zhejiang province, charged LŸ with "inciting subversion of state power", according to human-rights groups and news reports. Officials also searched his home and confiscated his computer hard drive and files soon after his detention in August 2007. Police did not notify his wife, Wang Xue'e, of the arrest for more than a month. Hu Jia,freelance Imprisoned: December 27, 2007 Police charged Hu, a prominent human-rights activist and essayist, with "incitement to subvert state power" based on six online commentaries and two interviews with foreign media in which he criticised the Communist Party. On April 3, 2008, he was sentenced to three and a half years in prison. Dhondup Wangchen, Filming for Tibet Imprisoned: March 26, 2008 Police in Tongde, Qinghai province, arrested Wangchen, a Tibetan documentary film-maker, shortly after he sent footage filmed in Tibet to colleagues, according to the production company, Filming for Tibet. A 25-minute film titled Jigdrel Chen Daojun, freelance Imprisoned: May 9, 2008 Police arrested Chen in Sichuan province shortly after he had been involved in a "strolling" non-violent protest against a proposed petrochemical plant in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, according to English- and Chinese-language news reports. In November 2008, he was found guilty of inciting subversion against the state, according to international news reports. He was sentenced to three years in prison. Huang Qi, 6-4tianwang Imprisoned: June 10, 2008 The website 6-4tianwang reported that its founder, Qi, had been forced into a car along with two friends on June 10, 2008. On June 18, news reports said police had detained him and charged him with illegally holding state secrets. Du Daobin, freelance Imprisoned: July 21, 2008 Police rearrested Du during an apparent crackdown on dissidents prior to the Beijing Olympics in August 2008. His defence lawyer, Mo Shaoping, told CPJ that public security officials arrested the well-known Internet writer at his workplace in Yingcheng in the province of Hubei. Kunchok Tsephel Gopey Tsang, Chomei Imprisoned: February 26, 2009 Public security officials arrested Kunchok Tsephel, an online writer, in Gannan, a Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in the south of Gansu province, according to Tibetan rights groups. Kunchok Tsephel ran the Tibetan cultural issues website Chomei, according to the Dharamsala-based Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy. Kate Saunders, United Kingdom communications director for the International Campaign for Tibet, told CPJ by telephone from New Delhi that she learned of his arrest from two sources. The detention appeared to be part of a wave of arrests of writers and intellectuals in advance of the 50th anniversary of the 1959 uprising preceding the Dalai Lama's departure from Tibet in March. The 2008 anniversary had provoked ethnic rioting in Tibetan areas, and foreign reporters were barred from the region. Kunga Tsayang (Gang-Nyi), freelance Imprisoned: March 17, 2009 The Public Security Bureau arrested Kunga Tsayang during a late-night raid, according to the Dharamsala-based Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, which said it had received the information from several sources. An environmental activist and photographer who also wrote online articles under the pen name Gang-Nyi or 'Sun of Snowland', Tsayang maintained his own website titled Zindris (Jottings) and contributed to others. He authored several essays on politics in Tibet, including 'Who Is the Real Instigator of Protests?' according to New York-based advocacy group Students for a Free Tibet. Kunga Tsayang was convicted of revealing state secrets and sentenced in November to five years in prison, according to the centre. Sentencing was imposed during a closed court proceeding in the Tibetan area of Gannan, Gansu province. Dokru Tsultrim (Zhuori Cicheng), freelance Imprisoned: April 2009 A monk at Ngaba Gomang Monastery in western Sichuan province, Dokru Tsultrim was arrested in early April for alleged anti-government writings and articles in support of the Dalai Lama, according to the Dharamsala-based Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy and the International Campaign for Tibet. Dokru Tsultrim, originally from Qinghai province on the Tibetan plateau, also managed a private Tibetan journal, Khawai Tsesok (Life of Snow), which ceased publication after his arrest, the centre said. "Zhuori Cicheng" is the Chinese transliteration of his name, according to Tashi Choephel Jamatsang at the centre, who provided CPJ with details by email. Chinese security forces detained the monk in his room at the monastery shortly after the publication of two of his articles criticising the Chinese government's policies in Tibet, the centre said. The exact date of his arrest was unknown. Authorities had not disclosed his whereabouts or legal status. Tashi Rabten, freelance Imprisoned: July 26, 2009 Public security officials detained Tashi Rabten, a student at Northwest Minorities University in Lanzhou, while he was on summer break at his home in Ngaba county, Sichuan province, according to the US government-funded Radio Free Asia (RFA) and international Tibetan rights groups. Rabten edited the magazine Shar Dungri (Eastern Snow Mountain) in the aftermath of ethnic rioting in Tibet in March 2008.
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