Coinciding with World Press Freedom Day (May 3rd), global media outlets unite as One Free Press Coalition to publish this annual “10 Most Urgent” list, bringing attention to fellow journalists who are being imprisoned for seeking to tell the truth. These ten cases illuminate governments’ efforts at criminalizing journalism, silencing the media, and withholding information from the public.

The list is compiled in collaboration with the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) and Reporters Without Borders (RSF). According to CPJ data, 361 journalists were behind bars worldwide at the end of 2024 (up from 320 in 2023).

In August 2024, the One Free Press Coalition celebrated the release of two American journalists—Evan Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva—from Russian detention after their cases topped the May 2024 list of “10 Most Urgent” press freedom cases.

Given the increasing number of journalists detained for simply doing their jobs and seeking to tell the truth, and given the successful 2024 campaign to free Gershkovich and Kurmasheva, the One Free Press Coalition crucially and emphatically unites our collective voices in support of the following individuals and their urgent cases of press persecution.

1. Jimmy Lai (Hong Kong)

Since December 2020, Jimmy Lai Chee-ying has been jailed in solitary confinement in a Hong Kong maximum-security prison. The 77-year-old media entrepreneur and British citizen founded the newspaper Apple Daily which has since been shuttered in China’s crackdown on pro-democracy advocacy and journalism. Lai’s son Sebastien told CPJ in late 2024, “For his dedication to freedom, they have taken his away. For his bravery in standing in defense of others, they have denied him human contact.” Beijing has repeatedly delayed Lai’s trial on charges of sedition and conspiring to collude with foreign forces, while Lai is currently serving a sentence of 5 years and 9 months. Lai denies the charges and has pleaded not guilty. His legal team told PBS in 2024 that Lai has been “prosecuted for being a journalist and for his writing, raising human rights concerns with international human rights organizations, and speaking to politicians internationally to raise concern about these issues.”

2. Shin Daewe (Myanmar)

Award-winning documentary filmmaker Shin Daewe was ordered a life sentence in 2024 (since reduced to 15 years) on charges of illegal possession of an unregistered drone, after being arrested and interrogated by police in 2023 when she was receiving the drone that she had ordered online. According to a VOA report, Daewe was denied legal representation and convicted of financing terrorist activities. Her husband noted that Daewe appeared to have been beaten during police interrogations, based on visible stitches on her head and welts on her arms. Daewe reported for local media group Democratic Voice of Burma and regularly freelanced for Radio Free Asia, contributing documentary coverage about environmental issues and the toll of armed conflict on the country’s civilians. CPJ reports Myanmar as the world’s second-worst jailer of journalists.

3. Frenchie Mae Cumpio (Philippines)

Tacloban-based journalist Frenchie Mae Cumpio, 26, has been held in pre-trial detention for five years. Authorities raided her home in February 2020 and arrested her—along with colleagues Marielle Domequil and Alexander Abinguna—on charges of illegal firearms possession and terrorism financing, which she denies. Cumpio testified to having been subjected to months of surveillance and harassment prior to the raid, and an outside investigation found that a firearm and grenade were planted by military members in her home to incriminate the then-21-year-old. Her reporting included local radio coverage of military and police abuse and independent media stories about marginalized people in the Philippines. If convicted, she faces up to 40 years in prison.

4. Pham Doan Trang (Vietnam)

Vietnamese author, journalist and activist Pham Doan Trang, 45, was arrested in 2020 and accused of “anti-state propaganda.” She was held incommunicado for more than one year before her one-day trial and conviction in 2021, sentencing her to nine years in prison. For years prior to her arrest, she endured threats, police brutality, self-imposed exile and interrogations over her writings about democracy, freedom of expression, human rights, environmental degradation and women’s empowerment. Her work had appeared in Luat Khoa legal magazine which she founded, independent English-language website The Vietnamese, state media, and exile-run blog Danlambao. Former PEN America CEO Suzanne Nossel said in 2024, “She has sacrificed her health and freedom in the pursuit of justice.”

5. Ihar Losik (Belarus)

A freelance journalist for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Belarus Service, Ihar Losik was detained in June 2020 in advance of Belarus’ rigged election in August. He was tried on charges including “organization of mass riots” and “incitement to hatred.” After a five-month closed-door trial in 2021 resulting in convictions for six journalists, Losik was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Reports suggest that Losik, 32, has endured hunger strikes, frequent cell transfers, denied mail privileges and self-inflicted injuries, and he is currently being held incommunicado. In 2025, RSF filed a complaint at the International Criminal Court on his behalf. President Alexander Lukashenko and his regime have cracked down on independent media, holding dozens of political prisoners, including having detained Losik’s wife Darya for more than a year after she gave an interview to Poland-based news outlet Belsat.

6. Sevinj Vagifgizi (Azerbaijan)

Since 2023, Azerbaijan has implemented a major crackdown on independent press, criminally charging at least 16 journalists including Sevinj Vagifgizi, the chief editor of anti-corruption investigative outlet Abzas Media. She and five colleagues have been arrested, and she continues to be detained in reportedly “horrific conditions” on multiple financial crime charges in relation to allegedly illegally receiving funding from Western donors. Police claimed to have found more than $43,000 during a search of the outlet’s offices. Vagifgizi and her colleagues deny the charges and claim they are retaliation for Abzas Media’s published investigative series into the wealth of public figures. “This case is not about smuggling, illegal entrepreneurship, tax evasion, or document forgery,” Vagifgizi, 35, said during a March 2025 hearing. “It’s about intolerance for the truth.” The journalists could face up to 12 years in detention.

7. Vladyslav Yesypenko (Russia)

One of at least 18 Ukrainian journalists from Russian-occupied Crimea being held in Russia on politically motivated charges, Vladyslav Yesypenko has been in detention for more than four years. He is a 56-year-old Russian-Ukrainian dual citizen and a contributor to Crimea.Realities, a unit of Radio Free Europe/RadioLiberty’s Ukrainian Service who had been covering social and environmental issues in Crimea, including ecological crises and the impact of Russia’s occupation on the region. He was arrested in 2021 and sentenced in 2022 to six years in prison (later reduced to five years). Initially detained on suspicion of spying for the Ukrainian government, those charges were dropped and replaced eight days later with charges relating to possession and transport of explosives. He, his employer and human rights groups have denounced the charges as fabricated. According to RFE/RL, Yesypenko testified that he was tortured with electric shocks to force him into a false confession.

8. Li Yanhe (China)

China is the world’s leading jailer of journalists, holding at least 150 behind bars according to RSF and CPJ reporting in December 2024. Among them, Taiwan-based radio host and publisher Li Yanhe was arrested two years ago during a trip to Shanghai, held incommunicado, and sentenced in February 2025 to a $6,900 fine and three years in prison on charges of inciting separatism. A government spokesperson said that Li—who was born in China in 1971 and goes by the name Fu Cha—pleaded guilty and did not appeal the verdict. Li had immigrated to Taiwan in 2009, where he founded Gusa Press, which has published books critical of the ruling Chinese Communist Party. He also hosts a program on Radio Taiwan International about Chinese politics and current affairs. A statement from Gusa Press said, “We can’t see the indictment, don’t know what exactly Fu Cha was convicted for doing, don’t know the sentence, and are even more uncertain about whether he can return home after serving his sentence.”

9. Makhabat Tajibek kyzy, Azamat Ishenbekov, Aike Beishekeyeva (Kyrgyzstan)

In February, Kyrgyzstan’s Supreme Court confirmed sentences against three journalists from YouTube-based anti-corruption investigative outlet Temirov Live on charges of calling for mass unrest. The three individuals are the outlet’s director Makhabat Tajibek kyzy (sentenced to six years), presenter Azamat Ishenbekov (five years), and reporter Aike Beishekeyeva (five years after a three-year probation period). Seven other colleagues had been arrested in January 2024 but were later acquitted into house arrest or released under travel bans. The decision also included sentencing for Aktilek Kaparov, a former reporter of Temirov Live which was founded by now exiled Bolot Temirov. Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov dismissed the journalists as “not real” in September 2024 and claimed they were “spreading false information calling for riots,” according to Amnesty International.

10. Joakim Medin (Turkey)

Joakim Medin, a special correspondent for the Swedish newspaper ETC, has been held in a high-security prison in Silivri, Turkey since March 30. He was arrested three days earlier in Istanbul, while traveling to report on civil unrest in the city, and was accused of insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and “belonging to an armed terrorist organization” because he was present as a reporter at an anti-Erdoğan rally organized by individuals tied to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party in Stockholm in 2023. Medin’s reporting specializes, among other topics and regions, in Kurdish issues. Through his lawyer, Medin sent the handwritten message from prison: “Journalism is not a crime in any country.” An RSF report with local partner Bianet published in August 2024 found that at least 77 journalists have been convicted of “insulting the president” during Erdoğan’s decade-long administration.

We are relaunching the One Free Press Coalition’s “10 Most Urgent” list as an annual publication set to coincide with World Press Freedom Day.

CPJ documented 320 journalists behind bars last year as of December 1, 2023, and this number was the second-highest recorded by CPJ since the census began in 1992 – a disturbing barometer of entrenched authoritarianism and the vitriol of governments determined to smother independent voices.

Given the state of press freedom, with our colleagues imprisoned and targeted for simply doing their jobs, this is a crucial time to use our collective voices to highlight the most urgent cases and shine a light on the threats to journalists around the world.

Evan Gershkovich

1. Evan Gershkovich, Europe & Central Asia (US/Russia, imprisoned in Russia)

Evan Gershkovich, a U.S citizen based in Moscow as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, has been detained in Russia since March 2023 on espionage charges that he, his newspaper, and the U.S. government all deny. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison.

On March 30, 2023, Russia’s Federal Security Service, the FSB, announced it had detained Gershkovich on suspicion of spying for the United States. The FSB alleged Gershkovich was trying to obtain classified information related to “the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex.”

Gershkovich has lived in Moscow for six years, was accredited with the Russian Foreign Ministry, and was covering Russia as part of The Wall Street Journal’s Moscow bureau. He had reported extensively about Russia’s war in Ukraine.

2. Alsu Kurmasheva, Europe & Central Asia (US, imprisoned in Russia)

Alsu Kurmasheva, a U.S.-Russian dual citizen and an editor with the Tatar-Bashkir service of U.S. Congress-funded, editorially independent Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), has been detained in Russia since October 18, 2023, on charges of failing to register as a foreign agent. A new charge of spreading “fake” information about the Russian army was later brought against her. If convicted of both charges, Kurmasheva faces up to 15 years in prison in total.

Kurmasheva, who lives in Prague, traveled to Russia for a family emergency on May 20, 2023 and has been unable to leave the country since. She complained of harsh conditions behind bars, of health issues that recurred while in detention and of getting a “minimal” medical treatment.

On April 1, her detention was extended until June 5.

3. José Rubén Zamora, Americas (Guatemala)

José Rubén Zamora, president of the Guatemalan newspaper elPeriódico, was sentenced to six years in prison in June 2023 on money laundering charges that were widely condemned as retaliation for his journalism.

An appeals court annulled his sentence in October 2023 and Zamora remains behind bars ahead of a retrial scheduled for 2024. He has been in detention since his arrest in July 2022.

Zamora, one of Guatemala’s most high-profile investigative journalists with a career spanning more than 30 years, has faced repeated threats and attacks for his decades of reporting on corruption and human rights violations.

4. Genet Asmamaw, Africa (Ethiopia)

Genet Asmamaw, a reporter with the YouTube-based Medlot Media, which is part of the Yegna Media group, and covers political issues related to the Amhara people, was arrested in April 2023 in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. She was physically assaulted during the arrest.

She was charged with terrorism in June, alongside 50 co-defendants, three of whom were journalists. Genet, who could face the death penalty if convicted, joined a hunger strike in May to protest what detainees described as political persecution. As of late 2023, she was in prison awaiting trial.

5. Jimmy Lai, Asia (Hong Kong)

Hong Kong media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, 76, the founder of the now-shuttered pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily and a British citizen, has been detained since December 2020.

Lai is currently serving a prison sentence of five years and nine months on fraud charges related to a lease dispute and is on a separate trial under national security charges, which could see him jailed for life.

The charges of foreign collusion under the national security law – imposed by Beijing three years ago – has been used to stifle free speech and crush dissent in Hong Kong, once a bastion of press freedom in Asia.

6. Shireen Abu Akleh, MENA (West Bank)

Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian American correspondent for Al-Jazeera Arabic, was fatally shot in the head on May 11, 2022, while covering an Israeli army operation in the West Bank town of Jenin, according to Al-Jazeera and other news reports.

A video of the aftermath of the shooting, posted on Twitter by Qatar-based Al-Jazeera, shows Abu Akleh wearing a vest marked “Press.” Multiple investigations into her death concluded that the veteran reporter – a household name in the region – was shot by a member of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

As of May 1, 2024, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), preliminary investigations showed at least 97 journalists and media workers were confirmed dead since October 7, 2023; journalists in Gaza face particularly high risks as they try to deliver news during the ground conflict.

7. Viktoria Roshchina, Europe & Central Asia (Ukraine)

Ukrainian journalist Viktoria Roshchina was reportedly abducted by Russian forces in Ukraine in early August 2023 and has been held by Russia ever since.

Roshchina, who planned to travel on a reporting trip to the occupied territories of eastern Ukraine via Russia, left Ukraine for Poland on July 25, 2023, and was expected to reach the territories three days later. Her current location is unknown.

Roshchina is a freelance reporter who has been covering the war in Ukraine for several Ukrainian media outlets, including Kyiv-based independent news website Ukrainska Pravda, regional news website Novosti Donbassa, and privately-owned news website Censor.net.

8. Shin Daewe, Asia (Myanmar)

Award-winning Myanmar documentary filmmaker Shin Daewe is serving a life sentence on charges of illegal possession of an unregistered drone, a criminal offense under the country’s Anti-Terrorism Law.

Daewe was arrested on October 15, 2023, while picking up a video drone she had ordered online to use for filming a documentary. Police interrogated the journalist for nearly two weeks before charging her and transferring her to Yangon’s Insein Prison where she was tried by a secret military tribunal and denied legal representation during the proceedings.

Shin Daewe, a former reporter with the local media group Democratic Voice of Burma and a regular freelance contributor to Radio Free Asia, is known for her documentary coverage of environmental issues and the toll that armed conflict has taken on the country’s civilians.

9. Dieudonné Niyonsenga, Africa (Rwanda)

Dieudonné Niyonsenga, who also goes by the name Cyuma Hassan, owned and reported for Ishema TV, a YouTube channel that covered local politics and human rights. He was initially arrested by Rwandan authorities in 2020 who accused him of breaching COVID-19 lockdown orders. He was later charged with impersonating a journalist and forging a press card.

Niyonsenga was acquitted in March 2021, but authorities appealed that ruling, and he was retried, convicted and jailed for seven years in November 2021. In January 2024, it was reported that Niyonsenga had been tortured in a Rwandan prison.

10. Gustavo Gorriti, Americas (Peru)

Gustavo Gorriti is Peru’s most prominent investigative reporter and the founder of IDL-Reporteros, the journalism arm of the Legal Defense Institute, an independent organization dedicated to fighting corruption and improving justice in Peru.

In April 2024, Peruvian authorities opened a preliminary investigation into Gorriti, which could force the journalist to reveal his sources.

Since 2015, IDL-Reporteros has published exposés about corruption within Peru’s judicial system.

This month’s “10 Most Urgent” list from the One Free Press Coalition features journalists covering the war in Ukraine. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, millions of people are fleeing, hundreds are dying, and journalists are risking their lives to present the facts and the human toll of this incursion. Five journalists have been killed, while others have been attacked or have gone missing. The war has also devastated independent journalism in Russia. Recently, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law that criminalizes factual news reporting. Hundreds of independent Russian journalists have fled—but there are no guarantees for safe refuge, and many lack visas and resources to continue reporting in exile.

1. Oleksandr Gunko (Ukraine)

On April 3, Russian soldiers in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Nova Kakhovka searched Oleksandr Gunko’s home, seized his phones and electronic devices, and took him to an undisclosed location. Gunko is a poet and the chief editor of the Nova Kakhovka City news website, which has covered rallies in the city against the Russian invasion.

2. Sota.Vision (Russia)

Journalists at Russian independent news outlet detained, arrested, fined and charged.

Since March 7, authorities have detained at least seven journalists with independent news website Sota.Vision, including two who were sentenced to multiple days in prison. Authorities also fined and harassed employees of the outlet and seized their technical equipment for coverage of rallies and anti-war protests.

3. Iryna Dubchenko (Ukraine)

Journalist abducted at her home and held in custody of Russian forces.

On March 26, Russian forces detained Iryna Dubchenko and searched her home saying they knew about her “journalistic activities.” They accused her of hiding a wounded Ukrainian soldier and took her to Donetsk for “investigative action,” according to Dubchenko’s sister and 1+1 correspondent Yakiv Noskov. On March 29, the Zaporizhzhia region of the Ukrainian military administration confirmed the journalist’s abduction and said that “response measures are being taken.”

4. Ivan Safronov (Russia)

Trial scheduled for Russian journalist accused of high treason.

Trial is set to begin in early April for Ivan Safronov, a former reporter for the Russian dailies Kommersant and Vedomosti, who was detained in July 2020 by Russian Federal Security Service officers in connection with his reporting. He was charged with high treason for allegedly spying for a foreign country. His attorney told CPJ that agents interrogated Safronov about his March 2019 report on Russia’s alleged sale of jet fighters to Egypt. Safronov has denied the allegations of high treason, according to the attorney. If convicted, Safronov could face up to 20 years in prison, according to the Russian penal code. In July 2020, at least 18 journalists demonstrating support of Safronov were detained.

5. Remzi Bekirov (Crimea, Ukraine)

Crimean Tatar correspondent sentenced to 19 years in prison.

On March 10, a Russian court sentenced Remzi Bekirov, a correspondent for the independent news website Grani, to 19 years in prison for allegedly organizing the activities of a terrorist organization, a charge Bekirov denied. Bekirov, who is an ethnic Crimean Tatar, live-streamed from Russian authorities’ raids and trials of Crimean Tatars and also interviewed activists with the human rights group Crimean Solidarity. Russia has enforced its laws in Crimea since it annexed the peninsula from Ukraine in March 2014, including imposing substantial restrictions on media freedom.

6. Viktoria Roshchina (Ukraine)

Reporter held hostage for ten days by Russian forces.

Viktoria Roschina, a reporter with the independent Ukrainian television station Hromadske, was first reported missing on March 11 while on her way to the southeastern city of Mariupol. Her employer reported that Russian forces took her hostage. Roshchina was released ten days later. According to Hromadske, Russian “occupiers” forced her to record a video later posted on pro-Russian media and social media outlets in which she was forced to deny being held by Russian forces. Roshchina covered the Russian invasion in eastern and southern Ukraine. She is now in the territory controlled by Ukrainian forces.

7. Taisia Bekbulatova (Russia)

Independent news editor has worked to evacuate her Russia-based staff.

Once Russia passed legislation threatening up to 15 years in prison for the publication of “fake” information about the invasion of Ukraine, Taisia Bekbulatova, the chief editor of Russian independent news site Holod, began frantically looking for ways to evacuate her Russia-based staff. Bekbulatova had relocated to Tbilisi, Georgia, at the end of last year after she was declared a “foreign agent” by Russia’s justice ministry. Bekbulatova considers Georgia only a stopover and notes it’s “not the safest country for independent journalists because the current government is trying to avoid unnecessary conflict with Putin.”

8. Dmitry Muratov (Russia)

Nobel Prize-winning editor has suspended independent newspaper.

Dmitry Muratov, founder and editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta newspaper, is a 2007 recipient of CPJ’s International Press Freedom Award and received a 2021 Nobel Peace Prize for his work. In March, Novaya Gazeta covered an interview that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy gave to a group of independent Russian journalists. Russia’s state media regulator, Roskomnadzor, warned that media outlets were barred from publishing that interview. Consequently, Novaya Gazeta has suspended publication in print and online until the end of Russia’s so-called “special operation” in Ukraine.

9. Vladislav Yesypenko (Crimea, Ukraine)

Crimean journalist sentenced to six-year prison term.

In February, a court in Russian-occupied Crimea convicted Vladislav Yesypenko, a correspondent with the U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, on charges of possessing and transporting explosives, and sentenced him to six years in prison. Yesypenko maintained his innocence throughout the closed-door trial and testified that authorities “want to discredit the work of freelance journalists who really want to show the things that really happen in Crimea,” according to news reports.

10. Rodion Severyanov (Russia)

Russian war correspondent shot and wounded in Ukraine.

On March 29, war correspondent for the Russian pro-government broadcaster Izvestiya TV, Rodion Severyanov, who was embedded with the Russian forces, was wounded in the leg in the southeast Ukrainian city of Mariupol. He said he was shot while trying to help a wounded Russian soldier. In an interview, Severyanov said a Ukrainian sniper had shot him; however, CPJ was unable to independently verify the source of fire.