China has the most journalists in jail, with 47 of them in incarceration at the moment, a report by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists shows.

Those 47 journalists made up 17% of the worldwide figure of 274, the committee said in its special report, published on Tuesday.

The global figure, which covered only journalists imprisoned due to their work, exceeded the previous record of 272 registered in 2016.

After China, the second biggest jailer was Turkey, which had 37 journalists locked up, followed by Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Many incarcerated journalists in China were serving long sentences or were jailed in Xinjiang without their charges being made known, the report read. The country had also arrested several journalists for COVID-19 reports that countered Beijing’s narrative, it added.

Foreign journalists in China had been caught in diplomatic crossfire as well, the committee said. Beijing had expelled more than a dozen journalists working for publications based in the United States, it noted.

The report also cited the case of Australian citizen Cheng Lei, a news anchor for state-run broadcaster China Global Television who was arrested in August on the mainland for endangering national security.

The report’s findings echo a round-up report released by Reporters Without Borders last week. Reporters Without Borders put the number of jailed journalists in China at 117, including non-professional media workers.

At least seven journalists, whistleblowers and commentators were in detention over their criticism of the Chinese government’s handling of the COVID-19 outbreak, the Paris-based organization found.

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