Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is launching a campaign against twelve world leaders who suppress freedom of press, the organization’s statement says. 

The new campaign entitled "Great year for censorship" targets Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. In the latest World Press Freedom Index, these two states appeared in the 163rd   and 151st places among 180 countries. Other “participants” of the campaign include Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (Egypt), Isaias Afwerki (Eritrea), Prayuth Chan-ocha (Thailand), Kim Jong-Un (North Korea), Ali Khamenei (Iran), Salman bin Abdelaziz Al Saud (Saudi Arabia), Nicolás Maduro (Venezuela), Pierre Nkurunziza (Burundi) as well as Vladimir Putin (Russia) and and Xi Jinping (China).

“Grenades thrown at radio stations in Burundi, journalists fired over a tweet in Turkey, massive state propaganda in China, Russia and Eritrea, a blogger jailed and flogged in public in Saudi Arabia, military detention camps for journalists in Thailand – these are just a few examples of how these 12 enemies of media freedom behave. RSF’s 2016 World Press Freedom Index has highlighted a deep and worrying decline in the ability of journalists to operate freely and independently throughout the world, including these 12 countries. Journalistic independence is being undermined in both state and privately-owned media as a result of enhanced mechanisms for censorship and news control, propaganda apparatuses, and ideologies – especially religious extremism – that are hostile to journalism. And all over the world, oligarchs are buying up media outlets and subjecting journalist to pressure that adds to the existing pressure from government’s often allied with leading corporate interests,” the statement reads.