Dear Friends,
 
According to our round-up, a total of 779 journalists were jailed at some point in 2023 and 547 will spend New Year’s Eve in prison. China, Myanmar, Belarus and Vietnam are the four biggest jailers of media personnel. Between them, they are holding more than half of the world’s imprisoned journalists.

The sentences passed on women journalists broke records in 2023. The victims included Elaheh Mohammadi and Niloofar Hamedi, sentenced to 12 and 13 years in prison respectively in Iran. They included Maryna Zolatava, Liudmila Chekina and Valeriya Kastsiuhova, icons of independent journalism in Belarus, whose sentences ranged from 10 to 12 years. And they included Burundi’s Floriane Irangabiye, one of the few women journalists jailed in sub-Saharan Africa, who was given a 10-year sentence.

Thanks to your help, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) continues to deploy appropriate strategies to help obtain their release. Fewer journalists have been imprisoned this year than last. We will continue to fight tirelessly every day, assisted by our correspondents in more than 130 countries, to free these women and men who have been jailed simply for trying to tell us what is happening.

Each journalist in prison is a journalist prevented from working. It’s also a journalist who will be intimidated in the future. And it’s hundreds or even thousands of colleagues feeing the threat of imprisonment hanging over them. So, the right to news and information of millions could be violated. Behind these statistics, there are human tragedies and political consequences.

Together, let’s keep helping those who risk their freedom by trying to keep us abreast of developments in their countries. Your support is essential,  and I would like to thank you for it.