2025 journalist jailings remain stubbornly high; harsh prison conditions pervasive
For the fifth year in a row, more than 300 journalists were imprisoned worldwide as of the end of 2025, according to CPJ’s annual prison census. These record-setting numbers reflect growing authoritarianism and escalating numbers of armed conflicts worldwide. Often, journalists are held under cruel and life-threatening conditions – “a cemetery of the living,” as one freed Palestinian prisoner described it.
Forced to flee: Exiled journalists face unsafe passage and transnational repression
By Lucy Westcott/CPJ Emergencies Director Threats, repression, conflict, and unrest: across the world, these and other factors are pushing journalists into exile in record numbers. In a striking development, exiled or soon-to-be exiled journalists now make up more than half of the people CPJ assists. Between January and June 2024, CPJ provided financial support to…
Haiti joins list of countries where killers of journalists most likely to go unpunished
By Arlene Getz/CPJ Editorial Director The persistent lack of justice for murdered reporters is a major threat to press freedom. Ten years after the United Nations declared an international day to end impunity for crimes against journalists – and more than 30 years after CPJ began documenting these killings – almost 80% of their killings…
Fragile Progress: The struggle for press freedom in the European Union
By Jean-Paul Marthoz and Tom Gibson The European Union is facing numerous challenges as it seeks new ways to uphold its commitment to press freedom. This special report – a follow-up to the Committee to Protect Journalists’ 2015 report “Balancing Act: Press freedom at risk as EU struggles to match action with values” – examines…
Fragile Progress: Part 1
A CPJ special report on the struggle for press freedom in the EU Introduction European Union countries have traditionally been considered among the safest and freest places for journalists in the world. Yet, as the European Commission noted in November 2021, “the number of threats and attacks against them [journalists] have been on the rise in…
Fragile Progress: Part 2
Upholding the law Other governments, like those headed by Slovenia’s “pro-Trump populist”80 Prime Minister Janez Janša from 2020-2022 and Greece’s conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, also adopted illiberal practices, from media capture to public denigration of critical journalists.81 Yet the European Union can only act in those areas where its member states have authorized it…
Fragile Progress: Part 3
A CPJ special report on the struggle for press freedom in the EU Spyware and the EU In July 2021 the Pegasus Project, an investigation led by Forbidden Stories with the assistance of Amnesty International’s Security Lab,112 revealed how some EU countries, in spite of being officially committed to protect journalists’ freedom, had used surveillance…
Fragile Progress: Part 4
A CPJ special report on the struggle for press freedom in the EU EU access and transparency The press corps remains a major actor in Brussels in spite of a decline in the number of accredited correspondents as many legacy media downsized staff or began covering the EU from outside of Brussels. The European Commission’s…
Fragile Progress: Part 5
A CPJ special report on the struggle for press freedom in the EU Fighting impunity CPJ’s 2022 Global Impunity Index found that no one has been held to account for nearly 80% of 263 journalist murders over the past 10 years worldwide. Could the EU play a more active role in the fight against impunity,…
Fragile Progress: CPJ’s recommendations to the EU
A CPJ special report on the struggle for press freedom in the European Union The Committee to Protect Journalists’ 2023 report, Fragile Progress, highlights the EU’s responses to the complex and severe challenges currently facing journalists. As a critical juncture for continuing the defense of democracy approaches with the 2024 elections, CPJ believes that the…