The Worlds Most Censored Countries

New York City-based Independent non-profit organization, a widely known advocate of journalists’ rights and freedoms of the press, Committee to Protect Journalists, released their annual analytic report of the ten most censored countries.

It was published on Wednesday, on the eve of World Press Freedom Day.

At the top of the list was African country, Eritrea. CPJ described their censorship as very strong. According to the report, “Only state news media are allowed to operate in Eritrea, and they do so under the complete direction of Information Minister Ali Abdu. “

Right below Eritrea was North Korea. In North Korea, there’s a limit to how many foreign journalists can come in and the media outlets in the country all come from the official Korean Central News Agency and their web is very monitored and censored.

The other countries included on the list in order are: Syria, Iran, Equatorial Guinea, Uzbekistan, Burma, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, and Belarus.

Those countries reportedly had similar results of censorship as far as media oppression goes. This investigation only applied to countries where media control and censorship happens on the state level.

Nonetheless, countries were judged by 15 benchmarks that included:

Blocking of websites; restrictions on electronic recording and dissemination; the absence of privately owned or independent media; restrictions on journalist movements; license requirements to conduct journalism; security service monitoring of journalist; jamming of foreign broadcasts; and blocking foreign broadcasts.

In other news, on Thursday, The U.N. had a commemoration of World Press Freedom Day. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-boon asked the assembly and people present to observe a minute of silence, “ In honor of the journalist who were killed in the line of duty last year.”

In recent times, murders of have steadily been increasing. In 2011, 67 were killed and there have already been 22 murders this year. Detainment of journalists is quite similar.

179 journalists were detained in 2011, the highest number since 1990, and a 20 % increased compared to 2010.