Arrests of Indian journalists on the rise, especially in the past decade

The number of journalist imprisonments and murders are  on the rise, especially in the past decade.

There has been a marked uptick in imprisonments and killings of journalists after 2012 compared to the years before. The CPJ database has recorded data from 1992 onwards.

Between 1992 and 2001, 17 journalists in India were murdered and two imprisoned. There were four arrests and 16 killings in the decade ending 2011. Since 2012, about 30 journalists have lost their lives and 33 have found themselves behind bars. Seven journalists were incarcerated in 2021 and 2022, the highest in three decades. 

In fact, there has been a rising global trend of attacks against journalists. About 3,000 journalists have been imprisoned and over 550 killed between 2012 and 2022.

However, a few major countries account for over 50 per cent of all journalist incarcerations in the world. As many as 1092 journalists have been imprisoned in China between 1992 and 2022. 

As many as 891 have been imprisoned in Turkey, followed by 487 in Eritrea, 414 in Iran and 316 in Myanmar in the same period. India’s rank on the Press Freedom Index, which ranks 180 countries on its media freedoms, has slipped from 80 in 2002 to 150 in 2022. India was ranked 161 in the 2023 iteration of the freedom index.