Women Press Freedom Quarterly Report. January - April 2024
From Buenos Aires to Bratislava: Mapping the Global Siege on Women Journalists
Our data for the first quarter of 2024 reveals a troubling escalation in detentions and imprisonments of journalists, with a notable rise in the targeting of women and LGBTQI journalists. This report documents the following key findings:
Increased Detentions: There has been a significant rise in the number of journalists detained, particularly in Russia and Turkey. The unjust imprisonment of journalists like Shin Daewe in Myanmar, Nasrin Hassani in Iran, and Parisa Salehi in Iran underscores this disturbing trend.
Transnational Repression: The use of transnational repression tactics by authoritarian regimes to silence journalists abroad is on the rise. Russia leads in these efforts, but other countries like Azerbaijan, Belarus, and Turkey are also employing similar strategies. Women Press Freedom has documented 27 cases of transnational repression targeting women journalists in the first quarter of 2024 alone.
Deepfakes and Misinformation: The use of deepfake technology to discredit and harass journalists is increasing. This report highlights several incidents from the first quarter of 2024, demonstrating the growing sophistication and threat of deepfakes.
Political Attacks and Lay-offs: Journalists are facing increasing political attacks, particularly around election periods. The financial instability within the media industry has also led to significant layoffs, impacting the quality and diversity of news coverage.
Russia's foreign agent law has become a model for other authoritarian regimes. It has been used extensively to label independent journalists and media organizations as foreign agents, subjecting them to severe scrutiny, legal challenges, and public stigmatization. This legislative approach has been adopted in varying forms by Georgia, Turkey, Serbia, Bosnia, and Hungary, each using it to suppress critical journalism under the guise of national security and public order.