To close out 2021, the monthly “10 Most Urgent” list from the One Free Press Coalition presents “the year in press freedom.” The 10 cases encompass concerning trends in threats to journalists—from impunity to imprisonment, surveillance to harassment.

1. Zhang Zhan (China)

Zhang Zhan has been on an ongoing hunger strike behind bars, and is now in critically ill health. It has been nearly one year since the independent journalist was sentenced to four years in prison for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” after publishing videos critical of the government’s COVID-19 response from Wuhan.

2. Olivier Dubois (Mali)

French journalist Olivier Dubois went missing in May while reporting on Al-Qaeda affiliated group Jamaa Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM). Days later, a video of Dubois was released, revealing he was held in JNIM custody. He remains missing, as his family continues to fight tirelessly to get answers as to his whereabouts.

3. April Ehrlich (USA)

In September 2020, police arrested local radio reporter April Ehrlich in Portland, OR, while she was covering evictions of people living in a city park. Police charged her with criminal trespassing, interfering with a peace officer, and resisting arrest. Some of these misdemeanors could come with prison terms up to 364 days and fines up to $6,250.

4. Lázaro Yuri Valle Roca (Cuba)

Cuban journalist covering social and political affairs in Cuba on his YouTube channel has been held in pre-trial detention for close to six months now on an investigation for the crimes of contempt and sharing enemy propaganda. The day before his arrest, he published a video reporting on pro-democracy leaflets being thrown off a Havana building.

5. Juan Lorenzo Holmann and Miguel Mendoza (Nicaragua)

Juan Lorenzo Holmann, publisher of La Prensa, and journalist Miguel Mendoza have been jailed since this summer—in a prison notorious for its poor conditions and torture—on sham charges in retaliation for their critical reporting and commentary. Their imprisonment comes at a time of escalated crackdowns on the press in the country, and as dozens of journalists have gone into exile.

6. Hanthar Nyien (Myanmar)

News producer at Kayamut Media was imprisoned this past March under Article 505(a) of the penal code and another criminal charge for his journalism. His colleagues have said that while imprisoned, he has been tortured and deprived of food and water.

7. Ayşenur Parıldak (Turkey)

Ayşenur Parıldak, a court reporter for the shuttered daily Zaman, was arrested in 2016 as part of broader crackdowns against the press after the 2016 coup in Turkey. Her parole has been denied, despite the fact that other journalists with the same charges have since been released.

8. Ksenia Lutskina (Belarus)

Ksenia Lutskina, an independent journalist, was arrested after participating in an event at the Press Club Belarus, where five club members were also arrested and all given spurious charges on tax evasion. If convicted, she could face seven years in prison. Lutskina, who has a brain tumor has been denied medical treatment while in detention.

9. Mina Khairi (Afghanistan)

Mina Khairi, an anchor at the local broadcaster Ariana News TV in Kabul, was killed this past June after unidentified attackers detonated an improvised explosive device attached to a van. Afghanistan ranks 5th on CPJ’s 2021 Impunity Index.

10. Rana Ayyub (India)

In June, Uttar Pradesh police filed a criminal complaint stating that they were opening an investigation into columnist and journalist, Rana Ayyub, as well as The Wire, and two other journalists. Ayyub has long been the target of online harassment and misinformation campaigns in response to her commentary and reporting.

In conjunction with The International Day to End Impunity, November 2, the One Free Press Coalition is highlighting cases of journalists murdered around the world, where those responsible for their murder have still not been held to account. There is impunity in 81% of journalist murders during the last 10 years, according to CPJ’s 2021 Global Impunity Index.

1. Roohollah Zam (Iran)

Iranian authorities executed journalist Zam by hanging in December of 2020 after sentencing him to death on anti-state charges for his coverage of 2017 protests. Intelligence agents of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) lured Zam out of exile to Iraq, where he was abducted in 2019, and taken to Iran.  

2. Tara Singh Hayer (Canada)

Regina Martínez Pérez (Credit Revista Proceso)

Hayer, publisher of Indo-Canadian Times, Canada’s largest and oldest Punjabi weekly, was shot dead in his home garage in Vancouver in 1998. Ten years prior, he had been partially paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair after an assassination attempt. In the months prior, Hayer let the police know he had received multiple threats.

3. Valério Luiz de Oliveira (Brazil)

The sports journalist and commentator at Radio Jornal was killed in July 2012 after being shot four times by an unidentified gunman on a motorcycle. The trials for the suspected perpetrators have been repeatedly delayed and were suspended in 2020, with no future court dates set.

4. Regina Martínez Pérez (Mexico)

Nikolai Andrushchenko (Credit Denis Usov)

Martínez, a veteran reporter at national magazine Proceso, known for her in-depth reporting on drug cartels and the links between organized crime and government officials, was killed in 2012 after covering several high-profile arrests. A 2021 report from A Safer World For The Truth found strong indications for obstruction of justice by local authorities in her case.

5. Nikolai Andrushchenko (Russia)

Veteran journalist Andrushchenko died in 2017 related to injuries sustained in a beating from unknown assailants, and there has been little progress in the investigation. He was known for his criticism of President Vladimir Putin and his investigative reports alleging corruption and human rights abuses. He had suffered similar attacks in the past.

6. Sardasht Osman (Iraq)

Osman, a contributor to multiple independent news sites, was found shot to death in 2010. Prior to his murder, he had received threatening phone calls telling him to stop writing about the Kurdistan Regional Government. Authorities claim he was killed by a member of extremist group Ansar al-Islam; however, CPJ and other press groups have said the report lacked credibility.

Ahmed Divela (Credit Tiger Eye Private Investigations)

7. Ahmed Hussein-Suale Divela (Ghana)

Divela, a member of the investigative journalism outlet Tiger Eye Private Investigations, where he reported on issues such as sports, corruption and human rights, was shot by two unidentified men on a motorcycle in 2019. Divela had told CPJ in 2018 that people had attempted to attack him and that he feared for his life after a politician made comments about him on TV.

8. Sisay Fida (Ethiopia)

Sisay, a coordinator and reporter with the Oromia Broadcasting Network, was walking home from a wedding when he was shot and killed in May this year. There has been little progress in his case, and colleagues believe he was murdered in retaliation for his reporting.

9. Gauri Lankesh (India)

Unidentified assailants shot and killed Lankesh outside her home in Bangalore in 2017, as she returned from work. Lankesh published and edited Gauri Lankesh Patrike, a Kannada-language weekly tabloid known for its criticism of right-wing extremism and the establishment. While arrests have been made of those suspected to have ties to her killing, impunity remains.

10. Sagal Salad Osman (Somalia)

A university student and producer of a children’s program on state-run Radio Mogadishu, Osman was killed in 2016. She was leaving campus when three gunmen shot her in the head. Somalia ranks worst among countries for impunity in cases of journalist murders.

In light of growing reporting revealing the breadth and extent of the use of spyware to surveil journalists and governments weaponizing technology, the One Free Press Coalition chooses to focus its monthly “10 Most Urgent” list for October on cases of journalists who have been victims of surveillance or targeted by spyware, posing a threat to press freedom.

While surveillance of journalists is not a new phenomenon, the lengths to which bad actors will go to silence the press, and the rapid advancement of technology has exacerbated the problem.

Around the world, governments have used sophisticated spyware products designed to fight crime to target the press. Journalists say spyware has the potential to expose their sources, their movements and other private information that could be used to censor or obstruct them, or imperil them or their sources. CPJ has also found that these attacks often go hand in hand with other press freedom violations and hinders journalists’ ability to cover important stories on issues like politics and corruption.

Journalists can find CPJ resources on digital safety here and more reporting on spyware and press freedom here.

1. Omar Radi (Morocco)

Since 2018, Moroccan authorities have filed sex crimes charges against multiple independent journalists in the country in an effort to target them for their reporting. Investigative journalist Omar Radi is one of 180 journalists identified by nonprofit Forbidden Stories as targeted by surveillance spyware. This past July, he was sentenced to six years in prison on charges of sexual assault and undermining state security through espionage and illegally receiving foreign funding. 

Khadija Ismayilova (Credit IWMF)

2. Khadija Ismayilova (Azerbaijan)

A prominent investigative journalist, Khadija Ismayilova is known for her exposés of high-level government corruption and alleged ties between President Ilham Aliyev’s family and businesses. She was sentenced to prison in 2014 and served 538 days before her release. In a forensic analysis of her phone, Amnesty International detected multiple traces of activity that it linked to Pegasus spyware, dating from 2019 to 2021.

3. Sevinj Vagifgizi (Azerbaijan)

Sevinj Vagifgizi, a correspondent for the Berlin-based, Azerbaijan-focused independent media outlet Meydan TV, was targeted by Pegasus spyware from 2019 to 2021. She has been previously in Azerbaijani authorities’ crosshairs and was banned from leaving the country from 2015 to 2019. In 2019, she faced libel charges after she reported on people voting with government-issued pre-filled ballots. 

4. Szabolcs Panyi (Hungary)

Reports find that, in 2019, Pegasus spyware by President Viktor Orbán’s administration targeted Szabolcs Panyi among five Hungarian journalists, as conditions for independent journalism become increasingly grim in the country. Panyi is a journalist at Direkt36.hu, known for reporting on issues like government corruption.

5. Ricardo Calderón (Colombia)

Throughout 2019 and 2020, Ricardo Calderón, then director of the investigative team at newsmagazine Semana, was the target of threats, harassment and surveillance related to reporting on the Colombian military, including efforts to monitor journalists. This year the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights ruled that Calderón faced “grave and imminent” danger from threats and surveillance by the Colombian military and other sources.

Paranjoy Guha Thakurta (Courtesy of the subject)

6. Paranjoy Guha Thakurta (India)

Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, a journalist and author, has faced protracted criminal and civil defamation suits, and was recently threatened with arrest. Amnesty International detected forensic indications connected to Pegasus spyware from early 2018 on his phone, when he had been writing about political parties using social media for political campaigning, and investigating a wealthy Indian business family’s foreign assets.

7. Jamal Khashoggi (Saudi Arabia)

Citizen Lab, a University of Toronto team studying media, security and human rights, found that Pegasus spyware had infected the phone of Saudi Arabian dissident Omar Abdulaziz, who was in close contact with Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi before his murder by Saudi operatives on October 2, 2018. Research has found that family and colleagues of journalists are often targets of surveillance.

8. Ismael Bojórquez and Andrés Villarreal (Mexico)

After Javier Valdez Cárdenas, founder of Mexican outlet Río Doce was murdered in 2017, Río Doce’s director and his colleague received infection attempts to their phones with Pegasus spyware, with some of the attempts claiming to have information about Valdez’s death.

9. Carmen Aristegui (Mexico)

Aristegui Noticias, the outlet run by one of Mexico’s most widely known reporters, has exposed numerous corruption scandals. Carmen Aristegui has been heavily targeted, alongside her son (a minor) with NSO spyware links between 2015-2016, according to Citizen Lab.

10. Ahmed Mansoor (UAE)

Researchers report that prominent political blogger Ahmed Mansoor has been targeted by hackers multiple times, starting in 2011, when CPJ documented threats and legal action in connection with his blog.