Louise Bernard, edited by Solène Leroux with AFP 11:41, December 09, 2021, modified at 11:41, December 09, 2021

No less than 71 Uyghur journalists, professional or not, are in detention in China as part of the repression of this Muslim ethnic group in Xinjiang in the north-west of the country, says the NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF), in a report. which reveals some of the methods of the Chinese regime.

At least 127 journalists are detained in China. Among them, 71 are Uyghurs, this repressed Muslim ethnic group in the north-west of the country. The repression intensified with the Covid-19. The NGO Reporters Without Borders speaks of an "unprecedented campaign of repression carried out by the Chinese regime in recent years against journalism and the right to information" in a report entitled "The great leap back of journalism in China ". It reveals the methods of the Chinese regime. "Very few subjects now escape censorship" according to RSF. And to get their press card, journalists will have to take a training course on Xi Jinping's thoughts and will have to download a spy app. 

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The communist regime has imposed an "information blackout" in Xinjiang by de facto preventing independent reporting on the ground, said Uyghur journalist Gulchehra Hoja from abroad, quoted in the report.

Among the Uyghur perpetrators in detention is the intellectual Ilham Tohti, winner of the 2019 Sakharov Prize of the European Parliament, and who maintained a website listing problems encountered by his minority.

But also Gulmira Imin, administrator of another website, who for her part has been imprisoned since 2009. Xi Jinping "brutally put an end" to hopes for improving press freedom in China, said the secretary general of RSF, Christophe Deloire.

177 out of 180 in the press freedom ranking

Last year, 18 foreign reporters had to leave the country and an Australian journalist working for Chinese television, Cheng Lei, was arrested.

At least ten journalists, professional or not, have been arrested after covering in early 2020 the imposition of quarantine in the city of Wuhan, where Covid-19 was initially discovered.

One of them, Zhang Zhan, was sentenced to four years in prison.

According to her relatives, the days of this "citizen journalist", who is on a hunger strike, are numbered.

China is 177th out of 180 in the world press freedom ranking compiled by RSF.