The Committee to Protect Journalists has announced that 2009 was the worst year on record for journalists’ deaths:
Some 150 journalists are currently in jail, including 60 in Iran where the CJP says the authorities have in effect criminalised journalism.
The group said online journalists were particularly vulnerable to repression… As in the previous 10 years, China remained the world’s worst jailer of journalists – with 24 being held… Speaking at a news conference at the UN, CPJ officials said international pressure was still the most effective way to combat both government repression and impunity for non-state players who attacked journalists, the BBC’s Barbara Plett reports from the United Nations headquarters in New York.
The growth of new media – such as blogs and social networking sites – had created new opportunities fight repression and censorship, they said.
But CPJ officials warned that states like China and Tunisia can sabotage such technologies and turn them against journalists.
