Reporters Without Borders: 387 detained journalists in the worldwide, including 27 in Syria, during the year 2020

Reporters Without Borders, in a report issued today, Monday, by the organization’s Secretary-General Christophe Delaware, said that the number of journalists arrested in the world reached 387 at the end of 2020, including 27 journalists detained in Syria.

According to the organization, more than half of the imprisoned journalists are concentrated in five countries. Syria ranks fifth in the world in terms of the number of detainees with (27) journalists, while China ranks first with the number (117), followed by Saudi Arabia (34) and Egypt (30). Vietnam (28).

The organization pointed out that all the detained journalists are imprisoned for reasons related to practicing the profession.

Christophe Delaware said: “Women who are increasing in number in the profession are not immune to arrests, and that the number of female journalists deprived of their freedom now stands at 42, compared to 31 in 2019, an increase of 35%.”

The report noted that more than 300 incidents were directly related to the press coverage of the health crisis between February and the end of November, involving about 450 journalists.

The report indicated that arbitrary arrests, which constitute 35% of the recorded practices, increased four times between March and May.

The organization said that at least 54 journalists are currently being held hostage in Syria, Yemen and Iraq, a decrease of 5%, noting that four journalists have disappeared in 2020, and they are from the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.

Crimes against media professionals in Syria escalate continuously, amid impunity for perpetrators, according to periodic reports of the Syrian Network for Human Rights.
The Syrian Network for Human Rights documented in the first half of the current year 2020, the martyrdom of three media workers, two of them at the hands of the Assad regime forces, and a journalist at the hands of Russian forces.

It is reported that, last Saturday, unknown persons assassinated the media activist Hussein Khattab in the city of al-Bab in the eastern countryside of Aleppo, while he was preparing a photo report on the outbreak of the Corona virus in the liberated north The National Coalition considered, in a statement, the assassination of the media activist “Hussein Khattab” as a heinous, condemned and serious crime