For years, the imprisonment of journalists around the globe has been on the rise, as governments worldwide weaponize the law to jail those who dare to hold the powerful to account with independent reporting.
In recent years, a growing share of these imprisoned journalists are women. According to data from the Committee to Protect Journalists, 50 women journalists were behind bars around the world in 2025, the majority of whom have been jailed in the past several years.
Women journalists face a host of gender-based threats and risks. Yet, often, resources and mechanisms to support and protect women journalists navigating these specific risks are inadequate.
A 2025 UNESCO report on the state of freedom of expression around the world found that women are disproportionately targeted by attacks both online and offline, most commonly perpetrated by the subjects of their investigations.
Journalists are often the first targets of autocrats seeking to consolidate power. As authoritarianism gains ground worldwide, women journalists are increasingly bearing the brunt of an acceleration of global crackdowns on press freedom, facing harassment, online threats, arrests, and imprisonment.
Weaponizing the law
Around the world, governments regularly weaponize state criminal justice systems to arrest, harass, and jail journalists that report on politically sensitive topics.
This increasingly popular strategy for silencing independent voices, known as “lawfare,” relies on often draconian legislation ostensibly aimed at fighting cybercrime, terrorism, and “fake news” to target journalists and to censor independent news and information.
The overly broad, vague nature of many of these laws gives governments wide latitude to file politically motivated charges against journalists and impose lengthy, disproportionate sentences.
Such has been the case in Azerbaijan, where under the Aliyev regime, journalists who report independent news and information about the government are commonly charged with financial crimes, such as currency smuggling and tax fraud. Despite a robust lack of evidence and the absurdity of the charges, authorities have waged high-profile court cases against entire independent media outlets.
In Georgia, the ruling Georgian Dream party has accelerated efforts to restrict the space for critical voices, most significantly through the imprisonment of Mzia Amaglobeli, the first woman journalist to be imprisoned in Georgia’s 34 years of independence.
In China, one of the world’s top jailers of journalists, charges against members of the media are frequently fabricated in retaliation for reporting on sensitive social and political issues, including official corruption, public health, and the treatment of women.
A global surge in counter-terror legislation in recent years has fueled cases against journalists from Myanmar to Turkey, with authorities often claiming journalists have ties to communist networks and parties. In the Philippines, this practice – known as “red-tagging” – is used to damage the credibility of independent reporters in the eyes of the public, as even being accused of communist associations is enough to cause career-ending reputational damage.
Conflict fuels detentions
As conflict continues to spread worldwide, women journalists reporting in and around warzones face some of the most heightened risks to their safety and security.
Twenty-six Ukrainian journalists are currently being held by Russian forces, on opaque charges including terrorism and espionage. Testimonies by journalists released from Russian captivity paint a picture of systematic mistreatment and torture, which in the case of Victoria Roshchyna, led to the death of a Ukrainian journalist in Russian custody.
In Ethiopia, journalists were arbitrarily arrested en masse in April 2023 as tensions in the country’s Amhara region escalated to violent conflict. One woman journalist reported that police officers beat her during her arrest. The mass detentions occurred under the cover of a government-declared state of emergency related to the conflict, which authorities used to justify widespread human rights abuses.
In Iran, the regime has long used tools of repression, including intimidation of journalists and their families, arrests, and internet shutdowns, to drive out independent reporting. Now, amid an escalating military conflict and extreme political instability, all of Iran’s political prisoners are at even greater risk.
Mistreatment behind bars
While behind bars, women journalists regularly experience gender-based mistreatment at the hands of authorities, often with the goal of demoralizing them and intimidating them into silence.
In China and Myanmar, imprisoned women journalists have undergone long, tortuous interrogations. In Azerbaijan, multiple women journalists jailed in connection with authorities’ cases against Abzas Media and Meydan TV have experienced sexual harassment and rape threats.
Women journalists imprisoned around the world are also routinely denied medical treatment and basic necessities. In Turkey, women prisoners have experienced delays in getting necessary medications, while they are forced to live in overcrowded, hostile conditions.
Pervasive legal irregularities are a common pattern in many unjust cases waged by authorities against journalists. Often, journalists face excessively long legal processes, including extended stays in pretrial detention and trials that last for years, as authorities intentionally delay and postpone court proceedings to weaken international pressure and sustained attention to these cases.
The cost of imprisoning women journalists
When those who hold power to account are put behind bars, society loses. Strong, resilient communities depend on diverse, independent information and news on matters of the public interest.
Women journalists produce some of the most impactful, important, and courageous reporting both inside conflict zones and out, covering critical political, economic and human rights issues. Silencing their stories would significantly limit quality news reporting about important issues that directly impact their audiences’ lives.
Despite international commitments by states to ensure journalists are free and safe to do their jobs, more and more governments – including historically democratic ones – are demonstrating an overwhelming lack of political will to defend independent media as a pillar of free societies.
On International Women’s Day, IPI stands in solidarity with the brave women journalists around the world punished for their dedication to free and independent news and information.
IPI will continue to fight for their release, and the release of all journalists unjustly held behind bars for doing their jobs.
Journalism is not a crime.