China was the biggest jailer of journalists in 2015 for the second consecutive year, and the number imprisoned in Egypt and Turkey also rose sharply compared with 2014, a free-press advocacy group that monitors journalist incarcerations said in an annual report released on Tuesday.

“A handful of countries continue to use systematic imprisonment to silence criticism,” said the group, the Committee to Protect Journalists, which is based in New York.

The report, a snapshot of those imprisoned as of Dec. 1, found 199 journalists languishing in jails around the world, a modest decline from the 221 in 2014. One-quarter of them were in China.

The most significant change from a year earlier, the group said, was the increase in Egypt, now the second-worst jailer behind China. The group said the Egyptian authorities were holding 23 journalists, nearly double the 12 of a year ago, and it attributed the increase to the policies of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who “continues to use the pretext of national security to clamp down on dissent.”