News: China Ranks 1st in Detaining Journalists

The
United States has tied with Myanmar, the former Burma, for sixth place
among countries that are holding the most journalists behind bars,
according to a new report by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Each country is
jailing five journalists. The United States is holding four Iraqi
journalists in detention centers in Iraq and one Sudanese, a cameraman
who works for Al Jazeera, at the United States Naval Base at Guantánamo
Bay, Cuba. None of the five have been charged with a specific crime.

This year, China
topped the list of countries with the most journalists – 32 – in jail,
many of them for activity on the Internet. This is the seventh year in
a row in which China has led the list.

Fifteen of the
Chinese journalists are being held under national security legislation
for writing critically about the Communist Party online, the report
said.

A total of 125
writers, editors and photojournalists were held in jails around the
world on Dec. 1, 2005, the report said. The tally is 3 higher than were
held on Dec. 1, 2004, but it is not the highest number in the 25 years
that the committee has been keeping track. The highest was 182
journalists jailed in 1995.

Cuba ranked
second with 24, Eritrea was third with 15, Ethiopia was fourth with 13
and Uzbekistan ranked fifth, with 6 journalists in jail.

No American
journalists are being held in jails anywhere in the world, the
committee said. The survey is taken on a single day each year and does
not count those who may have been held and released at other points
during the year. Thus, Judith Miller, a former reporter for The New
York Times who served 85 days in jail this summer for refusing to
reveal a confidential source, was not included because she was not
incarcerated on Dec. 1.

The United
States has made the list before because other journalists have been in
jail on Dec. 1 for refusing to reveal their sources. But Ann Cooper,
executive director of the committee, said this was the first year in
which the United States had been on the list for cases in which
journalists had been held without specific charges being filed against
them.

"This is a
country where we are trying to foster democracy," Ms. Cooper said,
referring to Iraq. "Detaining people in this fashion and holding them
for weeks and months with no charges against them – that is not a
lesson in democracy."