At the Toledo Prison in Havana, journalist Omar Rodríguez Saludes is about to begin his seventh year behind bars. A talented photojournalist, his work documenting and often criticizing the Communist regime brought him international recognition but also political suspicion at home.
In 2002 he launched Cuba's first non-government publication since the Cuban Revolution and became editor of the country's major independent news society. But in 2003, Rodríguez Saludes was arrested and tried for "acting against the independence or territorial integrity of the state." He was sentenced to 27 years, the longest handed down to an independent journalist in Cuba yet.
Rodríguez Saludes is one of 125 journalists who are currently imprisoned as a result of their work, according to a report released this week by the Committee for the Protection of Journalists.
Encouragingly, the total number of detained journalists fell this year, if only by 2. However, the major culprits are still as strict as ever; China is holding 28 reporters, closely followed by Cuba, Burma, Eritrea, and Uzbekistan.
Regimes are refocusing their attention and clamping down on their internet critics. For the first time, across the world more online journalists and bloggers were imprisoned than any other media, including print and television.
The spread of the internet has provided an opening in countries where critical reporting is tightly controlled.
Yet it has also given oppressive regimes a freer hand to deal with difficult journalists. Online journalists often work alone, not then as part of a newspaper or network. They rarely have access to the legal advice and lobbying-power of a sponsoring-organization, and can more easily be 'disappeared'.
In Egypt, Mohammed Adel last week became the second blogger to be detained by the authorities when he was arrested in the street after searches of his parents' home. He joined Reda Abdelarahman, a Quranist blogger, whose pro-democracy writings attracted the suspicions of the regime. Neither journalist has been charged, nor have their families been told of their location.
In China, 24 out of 28 jailed reporters worked online, including Hu Jia who was seized in 2007. His widely-read online commentaries, on topics including environmentalism and the spread of AIDS, were accused of "incitement to subvert state power". During the Olympic games, Hu's wife was taken from Beijing and held for 16 days, out of contact with foreign journalists.
"Online journalism has changed the media landscape and the way we communicate with each other," said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon. "But the power and influence of this new generation of online journalists has captured the attention of repressive governments around the world, and they have accelerated their counterattack."
There are steps that online journalists can take to protect themselves.
Photographers and film-makers using digital equipment need to remove metadata from their work - an invisible coded signature which can identify a journalist. Bloggers can hide behind the Tor Project which acts like a virtual 'I Am Spartacus' declaration by web-users around the world.
Perhaps most importantly, online journalists should join or create close-knit communities of people willing to stand up for each other in times of difficulty. "All of us must stand up for their rights - from Internet companies to journalists and press freedom groups," said CPJ's Simon. "The future of journalism is online and we are now in a battle with the enemies of press freedom who are using imprisonment to define the limits of public discourse."