# Incidents: secrets and espionage laws in Asia

Each incident is a dated action by a government, an official, a regulator, a court or a legislature that limited journalists' ability to gather or publish news.

The number of entries reflects the depth of this record, not the severity of a country's conduct.

Filters: country, continent, tactic, stage, from, to, level, actor, leader, outlet, outcome, source_kind, has_case, plus q, sort (date, date_asc, country, tactic, relevance), per_page (up to 100), page and view (table or cards), as query parameters.

6 incidents match this view.

- 15 December 2025: [China (Hong Kong): conviction and 20-year sentence of the media owner Jimmy Lai under the National Security Law, 2025 to 2026](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2025-hong-kong-convicts-jimmy-lai-under-national-security-law). On December 15, 2025, the High Court of Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China with its own courts, convicted Jimmy Lai, founder of the newspaper Apple Daily, on two counts of "conspiracy to commit collusion with foreign force…
- November 2024: [China: editor Dong Yuyu is sentenced to seven years for espionage over meals with a diplomat](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2024-china-dong-yuyu-espionage-sentence). A Chinese court sentenced Guangming Daily editor and columnist Dong Yuyu to seven years in prison for espionage after his 2022 arrest while having lunch with a Japanese diplomat, a case his son called purely political.
- 17 January 2024: [Iran: journalists Niloofar Hamedi and Elahe Mohammadi are sentenced to 13 and 12 years](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2024-iran-hamedi-mohammadi-sentenced). Iranian journalists Niloofar Hamedi and Elahe Mohammadi, who broke the story of Mahsa Amini's death in police custody, were sentenced to 13 and 12 years respectively on national-security-linked charges tied to their reporting, and later re…
- 14 December 2021: [Vietnam: journalist Pham Doan Trang is sentenced to nine years for anti-state "propaganda"](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2021-vietnam-pham-doan-trang-nine-year-sentence). A Vietnamese court sentenced Pham Doan Trang, founding editor of the independent outlet The Vietnamese, to nine years in prison for distributing anti-state "propaganda" under a national-security provision of the country's penal code.
- 3 September 2018: [Myanmar sentences two Reuters journalists to seven years under the Official Secrets Act for reporting on a massacre](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2018-myanmar-reuters-journalists-official-secrets-act). A Myanmar court sentenced Reuters reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo to seven years under the colonial-era Official Secrets Act after police handed them classified documents at a dinner shortly before their arrest, while they were investiga…
- 8 June 2009: [North Korea: American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee are sentenced to hard labor](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2009-north-korea-ling-lee-sentenced). A North Korean court sentenced Current TV journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee to twenty years of "reform through hard labor" after their arrest for crossing the border from China without authorization, and both were released months later f…

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