Two women, Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina and Hong Kong’s administrative chief Carrie Lam, have also been added to the list. this is often the primary time that ladies leaders have found an area on the press freedom predators' list.
The list was released on Monday. The list has begin after a niche of 5 years; the RSF released the last list in 2016.
The global press body said that 17 of the 37 leaders are added for the primary time on the list. it's accused these leaders of "creating a censorship apparatus, jailing journalists arbitrarily or inciting violence against them".
At least 19 countries are show within the red colour by the RSF, which it says shows the bad situation for journalism. Sixteen countries are coded black, which RSF says things is "very bad".
The average of the predators included within the list is 66 and one-third of them are from the Asia-Pacific region.
Some of the opposite inclusions within the list are Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro, Myanmar's Min Aung Hlaing, Saudi Arabia's prince Mohammad bin Salman, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan and therefore the Philippines' Rodrigo Duterte.
In the case of Imran Khan, the RSF said, "In the shadows, behind candidate Khan, the military reasserted the deep state", adding that cases of brazen censorship are legion since he became prime minister.
"Newspaper distribution has been interrupted, media outlets are threatened with the withdrawal of advertising and television channel signals are jammed", the RS further said.
Talking about Bin Salman, the report said, “His repressive methods include spying and threats that have sometimes led to abduction, torture and other unthinkable acts. Jamal Khashoggi’s horrific murder exposed a predatory method that's simply barbaric”.
Khashoggi was a Saudi journalist who visited the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul to acquire documents to marry and was brutally slain inside it in 2018.
About the ladies on the list, the RSF said, "Lam's predatory exploits include the adoption of a digital security law in 2018 that has led to quite 70 journalists and bloggers being prosecuted”.
The watchdog's chief urged world governments to disavow the practices employed by the leaders it singled out and to acknowledge the positive contributions made by an independent press.
