{
  "title": "Incidents: lawsuits against the press in Asia, head of government William Howard Taft",
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  "counts_caveat": "The number of entries reflects the depth of this record, not the severity of a country's conduct.",
  "facets": {
    "country": [
      {
        "value": "PH",
        "label": "Philippines",
        "rsf": {
          "index": "RSF World Press Freedom Index",
          "year": 2026,
          "rank": 114,
          "of": 180,
          "label": "RSF 2026 rank: 114th of 180",
          "source_url": "https://rsf.org/en/index"
        }
      }
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        "value": "asia",
        "label": "Asia"
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        "label": "Lawsuits against the press",
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  "results": [
    {
      "slug": "1901-philippines-us-colonial-libel-act-el-renacimiento",
      "title": "Philippines: United States colonial government's libel law is used to close the newspaper El Renacimiento",
      "occurred_on": "1901-01-01",
      "occurred_on_precision": "year",
      "country": "PH",
      "country_name": "Philippines",
      "continent": "asia",
      "jurisdiction": "PH",
      "level": "national",
      "tactic_primary": "insult_and_defamation_laws",
      "tactics": [
        "insult_and_defamation_laws",
        "lawsuits_against_press"
      ],
      "leader_slug": "william-howard-taft",
      "leader_name": "William Howard Taft",
      "issue_of_the_day": "El Renacimiento was a newspaper that supported Philippine independence during United States colonial rule, and its 1908 editorial criticizing unnamed colonial officials as birds of prey drew a libel suit from Secretary of the Interior Dean C. Worcester.",
      "outcome": "upheld",
      "outcome_on": "1914-01-01",
      "outcome_note": "Kalaw and Ocampo's convictions were affirmed on appeal, and Governor-General Francis Burton Harrison pardoned Ocampo in 1914, after the fine had already forced the paper to close.",
      "stage": "punish",
      "ladder_note": null,
      "rsf": {
        "index": "RSF World Press Freedom Index",
        "year": 2026,
        "rank": 114,
        "of": 180,
        "label": "RSF 2026 rank: 114th of 180",
        "source_url": "https://rsf.org/en/index"
      },
      "era": "1900s",
      "granularity": "anchor",
      "status": "historical",
      "case_count": 0,
      "summary": "The United States colonial government in the Philippines enacted a criminal libel law in 1901 that Governor-General William Howard Taft defended by saying Filipinos were unused to the freedom of the press. The law was used in 1908 to convict the editors and publisher of the pro-independence newspaper El Renacimiento over an editorial criticizing colonial officials, and the resulting fine forced the paper to close.",
      "url": "https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/1901-philippines-us-colonial-libel-act-el-renacimiento"
    }
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  "license": {
    "name": "CC BY 4.0",
    "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
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}