Maria Ressa, CEO and Executive Editor of online news site Rappler and President of Rappler Holdings Corporation, reacts during a video call in Manila, Philippines, 16 January 2019 (reissued on 13 February 2019). Reports on 13 February 2019 state Philippine journalist Maria Ressa, editor of the Rappler news Web site has been arrested by Philippine authorities on libel charges. EPA-EFE/FRANCIS R. MALASIG 
As governments clamped down on news coverage of civil unrest and the coronavirus pandemic, the latest census by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) shows a record number of journalists were imprisoned because of their work in 2020. A separate report, by the CPJ and the Freedom of the Press Foundation, found that 120 journalists have been detained while covering protests in the US.
As of 1 December 2020, at least 394 journalists had been arrested in the US, Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. The US, China, Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia led in the number of arrests.
Protests and political tensions were a catalyst for many arrests. The CJP reports that two countries with significant increases in jailed journalists were Ethiopia, where unrest has deteriorated into armed conflict, and Belarus, where journalists were detained while covering protests against the election victory of President Alexander Lukashenko.
Of the US’s record-breaking 120 arrests, more than 36% were accompanied by assault. Journalists were beaten, hit by rubber bullets or other projectiles or covered in chemical agents such as tear gas or pepper spray.
There are 47 journalists serving long sentences in China, including independent video journalist Zhang Zhan, who began posting interviews with local
