A RECORD NUMBER OF JOURNALISTS ARE IN JAIL, CPJ CENSUS FINDS

PRESS RELEASE*

Turkey holds at least 81 journalists, fueling global high of 259

PHOTO: iilsindia.com New York, December 13, 2016--Turkey's unprecedented crackdown on media brought the total number of jailed journalists worldwide to the highest number since the Committee to Protect Journalists began taking an annual census in 1990. As of December 1, 2016, there were 259 journalists in jail around the world. Turkey had at least 81 journalists behind bars, according to CPJ's records, the highest number in any one country at a time-and every one of them faces anti-state charges. Dozens of other journalists are imprisoned in Turkey, but CPJ was unable to confirm a direct link to their work. China, which was the world's worst jailer of journalists in 2014 and 2015, dropped to the second spot with 38 journalists in jail. Egypt, Eritrea, and Ethiopia are third, fourth and fifth worst jailers of journalists, respectively. Combined, the top five countries on CPJ's census were responsible for jailing more than two-thirds of all journalists in prison worldwide. "Journalists working to gather and share information are performing a public service and their rights are protected under international law. It is shocking therefore that so many governments are violating their international commitments by jailing journalists and suppressing critical speech," said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon. "Turkey is at the vanguard of this authoritarian trend. Every day that Turkey's journalists languish in jail in violation of that country's own laws, Turkey's standing in the world is diminished." This year marks the first time since 2008 that Iran was not among the top five worst jailers, as many of those sentenced in the 2009 post-election crackdown have served their sentences and been released. The Americas region, which had no jailed journalists in 2015, appears on this year's census with a total of four journalists in prison. According to CPJ's census, nearly three-quarters of the 259 journalists in jail globally face anti-state charges. About 20 percent of journalists in prison are freelancers-a percentage that has steadily declined since 2011. The vast majority of journalists in jail worked online and/or in print, while about 14 percent are broadcast journalists. The prison census accounts only for journalists in government custody and does not include those who have disappeared or are held captive by non-state groups. (These cases-such as freelance British journalist John Cantlie, held by the militant group Islamic State-are classified as "missing" or "abducted.") CPJ estimates that at least 40 journalists are missing or kidnapped in the Middle East and North Africa. The census catalogs journalists imprisoned as of midnight on December 1, 2016, and indicates the country where held, charge, and medium of work for each imprisoned journalist. It does not include the many journalists who were imprisoned during the year but released prior to December 1. _______________________________________ * COMMITTEE TO PROTECT  (CPJ) Media contact: Kerry Paterson Senior Advocacy and Communications Officer Tel. +1 212 300 9031 Email: kpaterson@cpj.org  Mehdi Rahmati Communications Associate Tel. +1 212 300 9032   E-mail: press@cpj.org

South Sudanese Younger Generation Betraying its Fanonian Mission

Photo: aljazeera.com

We are either destroying South Sudan through physical corruption or through mental, ideological corruption. 

But in South Sudan, like anywhere else in the western world, the youth have been politicized and tribalized with in-your-face, willful ignorance. This is a simple, sad fact. Unfortunately, this simple fact affects what is said or written, and how sociopolitical issues are rationalized. Essentially, there's no neutral party, or a party acknowledged to be neutral, which can sieve issues into helpful epistemes. Everyone is cynically perceived to be a self-interested mind baptized with dark, undesired mole of otherness. And that's why I agree with Fanon that one cannot waste one's  time telling the younger generation that 'hunger with dignity is preferable to bread eaten in slavery.' They've made their minds and just don't care! When we follow (or laud)  corrupt leaders while they send South Sudan into free-fall, then we are no better than slaves.

And the sadness of this reality is heightened when one thinks of President Hoover's words that it's the young that fight and die after old folks declare war. South Sudanese youth in the diaspora isn't the one to go to war  and die so they'd take Hoover's words for granted. 

But Nietzsche captures South Sudanese tribo-political realities very well, that "the surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.” This is not only destroying South Sudan now, it's threatening to destroy her future. Our leaders are building a nation of a single opinion, a horde of zombified youth.

Well, I could console myself by looking at the American politics and how childish and divisive it still is after more than 200 years of democratic enterprise (however dirty). One could therefore say that South Sudan has only been independent for about 5 years so South Sudan have not digested the nuances and intricacies of democracy.  'We' therefore need not be too pessimistic about South Sudan. If Americans can elect a child-minded, thin-skinned fellow like Trump and spew unshamed racial division, then one should perhaps excuse tribalist South Sudanese. Why not!

Now, the above stands assume many things. For instance, that South Sudanese need time and they'll be prosperous; and that we are okay with our bad deeds as long as others have their own bad deeds, or that divisive politics is something that doesn't disappear even in two centuries, not just 5 years. But is this true though?

While South Sudanese can be excused given the newness of our political realities and the rudimentary nature of our institutions, one needs to remember that a way to goodness (prosperity) needs to be apparent, clear. But all we see now in South Sudan are sad realities on express lanes. They have passed the precipice and are off into the doomsday abyss. Besides, consoling ourselves with the bad side of the American realities is to ignore the long tradition of American political stability and strength of its institution. America can easily correct her few bad needs (not putting into consideration her morbid racial realities). However, what we have in South Sudan is a whole reality of bad deeds we need to make good. 

We should only pride in our good deeds not console ourselves on others' bad deeds. So what's the way forward? The way forward is for the youth to part way with the sordid culture of our contemporary politicians and chart our own way forward. This is absolutely crucial, but it's understandably utopian given our current realities. The youth are either naive, corrupt or myopic. It's becoming almost impossible to extricate themselves from their destructive uncles. 

"Each generation must out of relative obscurity discover its mission, fulfill it, or betray it," wrote Frantz Fanon in The Wretched of the Earth. Sadly, it looks like we are betraying our 'mission' instead of fulfilling it. We've lost sight of, or have not discovered, the difference between corrective  and malicious attitudes. We've become lost in the myopic darkness of our ancestral pride. I'm not sure if we don't know this or we just don't care!

The future of South Sudan, undeniably, lies in a united youthful voice in the country; unfortunately, this 'voice' is only open and audible when it wants to praise an uncle or when it wants something to swallow. The older generation is destroying the future of our children but some of us are either joining them in such a destruction, or they are cheering them on. 

Until the youth charts its own, united course, it'll continue to betray its South Sudanese Fanonian mission and continue in the same destructive trajectory. Can we stop this South Sudan?

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Kuir ë Garang. Twitter @kuirthiy