UNI

New York, Dec 8: The number of journalists jailed worldwide for their work increased for the second consecutive year and one in three is now an Internet blogger, online editor or Web-based reporter, according to a new analysis by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

CPJ's annual worldwide census found 134 journalists imprisoned as of December 1, a rise of nine from the 2005 tally. China, Cuba, Eritrea and Ethiopia are the top four jailers among the 24 nations that imprison journalists.

Other nations included Bangladesh, Burma (Myanmar), the Maldives and Sri Lanka.

Print reporters, editors, and photographers continue to make up the largest professional category, with 67 cases in 2006, but Internet journalists are a growing segment of the census and now constitute the second largest category, with 49 cases, the analysis released yesterday said.

The number of imprisoned journalists whose work appeared primarily on the Web, via e-mail, or in another electronic form has increased each year since CPJ recorded the first jailed Internet writer in its 1997 census.

The 2006 figure is the highest number of Internet journalists CPJ has ever tallied in its annual survey.

"We are at a crucial juncture in the fight for press freedom because authoritarian states have made the Internet a major front in their effort to control information,'' CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon said.

"China is challenging the notion that the Internet is impossible to control or censor, and if it succeeds there will be far-ranging implications, not only for the medium but for press freedom all over the world.'' Over all, anti-state allegations such as subversion, divulging state secrets, and acting against the interests of the state are the most common charges used to imprison journalists worldwide.

Eighty-four journalists are jailed under these charges, many by the Chinese, Cuban and Ethiopian governments.

But CPJ also found an increasing number of journalists held without any charge or trial. Twenty imprisoned journalists -- or 15 per cent -- have been denied even the most basic elements of due process, CPJ found.

Eritrea, which accounts for more than half of these cases, keeps journalists in secret locations and withholds basic information about their well-being.

The United States has imprisoned two journalists without charge or trial: Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein, now held for eight months in Iraq without due process; and Al-Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Haj, jailed five years and now held at Guantanamo Bay.

"In Cuba and in China, journalists are often jailed after summary trials and held in miserable conditions far from their families. But the cruelty and injustice of imprisonment is compounded where there is zero due process and journalists slip into oblivion. In Eritrea, the worst abuser in this regard, there is no check on authority and it is unclear whether some jailed journalists are even alive,''  Simon added.

CPJ is a New York-based, independent, non-profit organization that works to safeguard press freedom worldwide.