'Like ice melting': Journalists warn press freedom is in decline across Asia

Enlarge this image toggle caption Kin Cheung/AP Kin Cheung/AP

TAIPEI, Taiwan — When former lawyer Zhang Zhan posted hundreds of videos from Wuhan during the chaotic early months of the COVID-19 outbreak, she became one of China's most prominent citizen journalists. Jailed in 2020 for "picking quarrels and provoking trouble" — a charge Chinese authorities often use against journalists and activists — she was sentenced recently to another four years for the same offense. Aleksandra Bielakowska of rights group Reporters Without Borders (known by its French initials, RSF) called the decision fresh evidence of how far Beijing has gone to silence independent reporting.

Rights groups say Zhang's case is part of a broader regional trend. Detentions of journalists and media workers across the Asia-Pacific region climbed steadily from a total of 69 in 2010 to 229 in 2020 (the year of Zhang's first arrest amid the COVID pandemic), spiking to an all-time high of 334 in 2022 before tapering slightly to 300 last year, an analysis of RSF data shows. Leading countries driving that trend were China, Afghanistan, Vietnam and Myanmar. It's happening as the U.S. cancels funding for independent media across the region, and China exports surveillance techniques beyond its borders.

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