Three countries from the MENA region reported as the worst jailers in 2019

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) published its annual report on the journalists that were imprisoned globally for their work in 2019. According to the CPJ, China, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt are the world’s worst jailers of journalists in 2019. While Turkey has clamped down on all independent reporting using terror-related charges and closed more than 100 news outlets, many journalists were jailed because of authoritarianism, instability, and protests, particularly in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The report also revealed that more than half of the journalists that are imprisoned worldwide have been sent to jail for publishing online.