SAO PAULO — A record number of journalists were imprisoned worldwide in 2012 in a "deteriorating environment for press freedom," especially in a group of countries including Russia, a leading media advocacy group said.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said in its annual "Attacks on the Press" report that 232 journalists were jailed last year in a "trend driven primarily by terrorism and other anti-state charges levied against critical reporters and editors." It said the number was the highest since it made its first survey in 1990.

The report, released Thursday, said that 70 journalists were killed in the line of duty in 2012. That's 43 percent more than in 2011. It said one journalist was killed in Russia last year, Kazbek Gekkiyev, a reporter for state television who was shot to death in the North Caucasus republic of Kabardino-Balkaria in December.

With 16 unsolved journalist murders in the past decade, Russia has the world's ninth-worst record for combating deadly anti-press crime, the report said.

(AP)