According to statistics from PEN America, China (the CCP) imprisoned a total of 107 writers in 2023, making it the global number one for five years in a row. The survey pointed out that most of the writers imprisoned by the CCP were merely criticizing official policies or commenting on the current political and economic environment. Earlier, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) released a report stating that China continued to rank first in the world in the number of journalists arrested in 2023, and it was also the first time that there were Hong Kong journalists imprisoned.
PEN America, headquartered in New York, USA, released the “Freedom to Write Index 2023” on May 1. The report, on a country-to-country basis, mentioned that China imprisoned a total of 107 writers in 2023, making it the number one in the world for five consecutive years.
The report analyzed the reasons why the 107 were imprisoned. Fifty of them were charged and convicted with the vague “creating disturbance and disrupting public order” for the mere acts of making “online comments,” such as criticizing official policies, publishing political or economic-related remarks, or expressing views supporting democracy.
PEN America’s report also shows that some Uyghur writers have been arrested on charges of “separatism.” Some writers in Hong Kong have also been facing tremendous pressure from the National Security Law (NSL) since 2023.
On Jan. 18, the human rights organization “Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)” released a report showing that at least 320 journalists had been imprisoned globally in 2023, the second highest in history. Among them, China still tops the chart in terms of the number of journalists arrested.
The CPJ stated that the CCP has intensified its efforts in recent years to detain journalists on “subversion” charges. Of the five new cases in China in 2023, three involved journalists accused of espionage, inciting separatism, or subversion of state power. Nineteen of the 44 jailed are Uyghur journalists.
The CCP has long been named one of the countries with the worst record of jailing journalists in the world, and its opaque censorship system has also made it difficult to ascertain the exact number of journalists imprisoned.
In recent years, Beijing’s suppression of the media has continued to grow. In 2020, amid the large-scale pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, Beijing implemented a strict “National Security Law” in Hong Kong. Since then, the investigation of the CPJ in 2021 discovered, for the first time, that Hong Kong reporters were imprisoned.
There have been a number of media celebrities in Hong Kong being detained without trial, including Jimmy Lai, the founder of Apple Daily. He was arrested on suspicion of violating the NSL and did not go on trial until more than 1,000 days in detention. Jimmy Lai was charged with “conspiracy to collude with foreign countries or foreign forces to endanger national security” and “conspiracy to publish seditious materials.” If convicted, he may be sentenced to life imprisonment.
Liesl Gerntholtz, Managing Director of PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Center, said that imprisoning writers not only suppresses a person’s voice but also violates everyone’s freedom of speech and human rights. Violating freedom of expression often leads to the deterioration of other aspects of human rights and clears the way for authoritarian states to stifle human rights. “This is why we must speak out against imprisoning writers and suppressing speech.”
