# Incidents, stage: silence 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. 47 incidents match this view. - 29 October 2025: [Tanzania shuts down internet access on election day amid unrest](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2025-tanzania-internet-shutdown-election-day). Tanzania's government restricted internet and social-media access on October 29, 2025, as citizens voted in a general election marked by protests, cutting national internet traffic by nearly 90 percent and leaving both local and foreign jo… - 15 March 2025: [United States: U.S. Agency for Global Media action to shut down Voice of America operations, March 2025](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2025-usagm-moves-to-shut-down-voice-of-america). Beginning on March 15, 2025, the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), the United States federal agency that oversees the government's international broadcasters, placed most of its staff on paid administrative leave and moved to shut down… - 4 March 2024: [Milei's government shuts down Argentina's state news agency Telam](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2024-argentina-milei-closes-telam). President Javier Milei's government fenced off and shut down Telam, Argentina's state-owned news agency, calling it a public-relations operation for the prior Kirchnerist governments; unions and journalist groups called the closure one of… - 21 August 2023: [India: Gaon Savera's Facebook and X accounts blocked](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2023-india-blocks-gaon-savera-accounts). India blocked independent news outlet Gaon Savera's Facebook page and X account nationwide just before a workers' convention it planned to cover, without a public explanation from the government. - 13 February 2023: [Cambodia: Prime Minister Hun Sen orders Voice of Democracy's license revoked over one article](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2023-cambodia-shutters-voice-of-democracy). Prime Minister Hun Sen personally ordered the license of independent outlet Voice of Democracy revoked over an article about an earthquake-aid agreement signed by his son, rejecting the outlet's published apology. - 5 September 2022: [Russia: a Moscow court suspends Novaya Gazeta's print license](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2022-russia-suspends-novaya-gazeta-license). A Moscow court suspended the print license of Novaya Gazeta, whose editor Dmitry Muratov shared the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, after the media regulator Roskomnadzor said the paper had not provided documents about a 2006 change of ownership. - 4 March 2022: [Russia: regulator blocks BBC Russian, Deutsche Welle and other outlets](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2022-russia-blocks-bbc-dw-meduza). Russia's media regulator Roskomnadzor blocked access nationwide to the websites of BBC Russian, Deutsche Welle, Meduza, Voice of America's Russian service and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty within days of invading Ukraine, alongside new p… - 24 June 2021: [China (Hong Kong): Apple Daily closes after its assets are frozen under the national security law](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2021-hong-kong-apple-daily-forced-closure). Apple Daily, Hong Kong's largest pro-democracy newspaper, printed its final edition after the government froze its parent company's assets and arrested its editors under the national security law imposed on the territory in 2020. - 18 May 2021: [Belarus blocks Tut.by and arrests its editors as 'extremist'](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2021-belarus-blocks-tutby-arrests-staff). Belarusian authorities blocked access to Tut.by, the country's most-read independent news site, searched its offices in three cities and arrested at least eleven staff, including its editor-in-chief, citing alleged media-law violations aft… - April 2021: [Poland: state oil company Orlen buys the Polska Press newspaper group](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2021-poland-orlen-buys-polska-press). Poland's state-controlled oil company PKN Orlen completed the purchase of Polska Press, a group of 20 regional newspapers reaching millions of readers, from its German owner, over objections from Poland's human rights commissioner. - 8 March 2021: [Myanmar junta revokes five outlets' licenses and raids newsrooms after coup](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2021-myanmar-junta-revokes-media-licenses). Weeks after seizing power, Myanmar's military junta revoked the operating licenses of five independent media outlets covering protests against the coup and raided two of their newsrooms, seizing computers and files; journalists from the ou… - 14 February 2021: [Hungary: Klubradio loses its terrestrial broadcast license over its tender application](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2021-hungary-klubradio-loses-broadcast-license). Hungary's Media Council ended Klubradio's decades-old terrestrial broadcast license, citing errors in its renewal application, after the station had built a following as one of the country's few remaining independent voices. - February 2021: [Myanmar: military cuts mobile internet after seizing power](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2021-myanmar-military-internet-shutdown). After seizing power on February 1, 2021, Myanmar's military cut mobile data service nationwide, leaving reporters in rural townships and Rakhine State unable to send news and blocking large areas from outside communication for months. - November 2020: [Ethiopia: internet and phone service cut across Tigray](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2020-ethiopia-tigray-internet-blackout). Ethiopia's government cut internet and telephone service across the Tigray region when war broke out there in November 2020, leaving the region without communication for months and forcing reporters to travel there to learn what was happen… - 16 November 2019: [Iran: near-total internet shutdown during fuel-price protests](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2019-iran-nationwide-internet-shutdown). Iran cut internet connectivity to about five percent of normal levels nationwide for nearly a week during protests over fuel prices, while arresting at least eleven journalists, including one detained for reporting on the shutdown itself. - 5 August 2019: [India imposes a communications blackout in Jammu and Kashmir after revoking the region's special status](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2019-india-kashmir-communications-blackout). As it revoked Jammu and Kashmir's constitutional autonomy, India's government cut broadband, mobile internet, text messaging and phone service across the region, leaving local journalists unable to file stories, verify information or commu… - 29 November 2018: [Hungary: formation of the KESMA pro-government media foundation](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2018-hungary-kesma-media-merger). Owners aligned with Hungary's governing party donated 476 outlets into one non-profit foundation, KESMA. The government exempted the merger from the antitrust review that would normally apply to a combination of that size. - 21 March 2018: [Turkiye: Dogan Holding sells its media outlets to Demiroren](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2018-turkiye-dogan-sells-to-demiroren). Turkiye's largest independent media group, including the newspaper Hurriyet and the broadcaster CNN Turk, was sold to the Demiroren conglomerate, a buyer with ties to the governing party, for a reported 1.1 billion dollars. - 4 September 2017: [Cambodia's government forces the closure of The Cambodia Daily with a disputed multimillion-dollar tax bill](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2017-cambodia-daily-closed-tax-bill). Cambodia's tax authority presented the independent, English-language Cambodia Daily with a $6.3 million bill the paper called arbitrary and undocumented, forcing the 24-year-old newspaper to close rather than pay, amid a wider campaign aga… - 27 July 2016: [Turkey closes more than 100 media outlets by decree after a failed coup attempt](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2016-turkey-post-coup-media-closures). After a failed July 2016 coup attempt, Turkey's government closed more than 100 newspapers, television and radio stations, news agencies and publishing houses by state-of-emergency decree, citing alleged links to the movement it blamed for… - 4 March 2016: [Turkiye: court installs trustees at Zaman newspaper](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2016-turkiye-zaman-trustees-installed). An Istanbul court put Turkiye's best-selling newspaper, Zaman, and its parent company under trustees after ruling it supported a group the government called a terrorist organization. Police used tear gas on a crowd that gathered in support. - June 2010: [Israel: a court bars any mention of the 'Prisoner X' case](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2010-israel-prisoner-x-gag-order). An Israeli judge ordered Israeli media barred from any mention of a prisoner held under a false identity, or of the order itself, applying a system under which security-related stories must be reviewed and cleared by the military before pu… - 27 May 2007: [Venezuela: the government declines to renew RCTV's broadcast concession](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2007-venezuela-rctv-license-not-renewed). Venezuela's government let Radio Caracas Television's twenty-year broadcast concession expire rather than renew it, replacing the country's most-watched channel with a new state broadcaster; a regional human rights court later found the de… - 12 September 2003: [Zimbabwe: police close the Daily News under the media registration law](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2003-zimbabwe-daily-news-shut-down). Zimbabwe's Supreme Court ruled the Daily News, the country's largest independent newspaper, was operating unregistered under a 2002 media law, and police shut its offices the next day; the paper stayed closed for nearly seven years. - 14 April 2001: [State-controlled Gazprom takes formal control of Russia's independent NTV television network](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2001-russia-gazprom-takeover-ntv). Gazprom, Russia's state-controlled gas company, used debts owed by NTV's parent company to take control of the country's last major independent television network at a shareholders' meeting, replacing its owner and top editors with its own… - October 1988: [United Kingdom bars broadcasters from airing Sinn Féin members' own voices](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/1988-uk-broadcasting-ban-sinn-fein). Home Secretary Douglas Hurd directed British broadcasters in October 1988 not to air the voices of representatives of Sinn Féin, a party linked to the Irish Republican Army, and other groups linked to violence in Northern Ireland. Broadcas… - 18 September 1988: [Burma's new military government tightens pre-publication press controls after seizing power](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/1988-burma-slorc-press-scrutiny). After crushing the 1988 pro-democracy uprising, Burma's new military government, the State Law and Order Restoration Council, tightened an existing pre-publication press controls board and raised penalties for unauthorized publishing to se… - 2 November 1985: [South Africa bans television and photographic coverage of unrest under a state of emergency](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/1985-south-africa-state-of-emergency-media-ban). Under a state of emergency State President P. W. Botha had declared in July 1985, the government banned television, radio and photographic coverage of unrest in South Africa's Black townships on November 2, 1985, requiring print journalist… - 13 December 1981: [Poland's martial law government shuts nearly all newspapers and interns journalists overnight](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/1981-poland-martial-law-press-suspended). On December 13, 1981, General Wojciech Jaruzelski declared martial law in Poland, cutting phone and telex lines, suspending nearly all newspapers, and interning thousands of people, most Solidarity trade union journalists among them, withi… - 31 July 1980: [South Korea's martial-law government purges journalists who resisted press controls](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/1980-south-korea-chun-doo-hwan-press-purge). Under General Chun Doo-hwan's martial-law government, South Korean authorities ordered newsrooms in 1980 to purge journalists who had resisted press controls or joined a May sit-in strike for press freedom, and closed 172 periodicals, dism… - 26 June 1975: [India imposes pre-press controls on every newspaper during the 1975 Emergency](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/1975-india-emergency-press-censorship). Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency on June 25, 1975, and the next day her government imposed pre-press controls on every Indian newspaper, requiring official clearance before publication and later forcibly merging t… - 11 September 1973: [Chile's military government shuts opposition radio stations and newspapers after the 1973 coup](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/1973-chile-coup-press-shutdown). On the day of the September 11, 1973 military coup that overthrew President Salvador Allende, Chile's armed forces bombed and shut down radio stations that opposed the takeover, arrested journalists and closed newspapers aligned with the o… - 21 September 1972: [Philippines President Marcos closes every major news outlet under martial law](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/1972-philippines-marcos-martial-law-media-closures). President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law on September 21, 1972, and the next day ordered the military to take over nearly every newspaper, radio and television station in the Philippines, jailing prominent publishers and editors and… - 15 June 1971: [United States government seeks an injunction to stop The New York Times publishing the Pentagon Papers](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/1971-us-pentagon-papers-injunction). After The New York Times began publishing a leaked secret history of the Vietnam War, the Nixon administration obtained a court order stopping further publication, the first such order against a major American newspaper. The Supreme Court… - 21 August 1968: [Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia is followed by the return of government press controls](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/1968-czechoslovakia-normalization-censorship). Soviet-led Warsaw Pact troops invaded Czechoslovakia on August 20-21, 1968 to end the Prague Spring, a period of liberalization under Alexander Dubček that had included the lifting of press controls. In the invasion's aftermath, the new le… - 24 May 1960: [Egypt's Nasser government nationalizes every newspaper and magazine in the country](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/1960-egypt-nasser-nationalizes-press). President Gamal Abdel Nasser's government issued a decree on May 24, 1960 placing every newspaper and magazine in Egypt under state ownership and management, with the government appointing editors and deciding content, ending private contr… - 17 July 1950: [South Africa's Suppression of Communism Act lets the government ban publications and restrict individuals](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/1950-south-africa-suppression-of-communism-act). Under Prime Minister Daniel François Malan, South Africa's parliament approved the Suppression of Communism Act in 1950, defining communism broadly enough to cover most opposition to apartheid. It let the government ban organizations and p… - 1948: [Israel retains a British-era law giving the military the power to review and restrict the press](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/1948-israel-military-censorship-established). When Israel declared independence in 1948 under Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, it retained a British Mandate-era Press Ordinance giving the military the power to review and restrict publications on security grounds, later formalized thro… - 16 April 1944: [Australia's wartime government seizes a Sydney newspaper edition under press controls rules](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/1944-australia-calwell-newspaper-seizure). Australia's wartime government, under Prime Minister John Curtin, controlled press coverage of military events through the Department of Information. In April 1944, Minister for Information Arthur Calwell ordered the seizure of copies of t… - 1939: [Brazil's Vargas government creates a state messaging department with broad press powers](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/1939-brazil-vargas-creates-dip). President Getúlio Vargas created the Department of Press and state messaging in 1939 during Brazil's Estado Novo dictatorship, giving the government direct control over what newspapers, radio and film could publish. The department operated… - April 1938: [Franco's Spain requires state permission to be a journalist under a wartime Press Law](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/1938-spain-franco-press-law). While Spain's civil war continued, the Nationalist government led by Francisco Franco enacted a Press Law in April 1938 requiring government permission to found a newspaper, work as a journalist or direct a paper, alongside continued pre-p… - 4 October 1933: [Nazi Germany's Editors Law bars Jewish journalists from the press and puts editors under state direction](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/1933-germany-editors-law). Nine months after Adolf Hitler became chancellor, Germany's Schriftleitergesetz, or Editors Law, required journalists to register with a new state-controlled Reich Press Chamber and barred non-Aryans from the profession, while directing ed… - 1933: [Portugal's Salazar government formally establishes press controls under a new constitution](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/1933-portugal-salazar-formal-censorship). Portugal's government, led by Prime Minister António de Oliveira Salazar, had restricted the press since a 1926 military coup while officially denying it did so. In 1933, alongside a new constitution promising freedom of expression, the go… - 1927: [United States Supreme Court strikes down a Minnesota law used to shut a newspaper](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/1931-us-near-v-minnesota-gag-law). A Hennepin County attorney used Minnesota's 1925 Public Nuisance Law to shut down The Saturday Press, a Minneapolis paper accusing officials of corruption. In 1931 the Supreme Court of the United States struck the law down, ruling that sto… - 1922: [Soviet Russia creates Glavlit, a central office to review all printed material before publication](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/1922-ussr-glavlit-censorship). In 1922, under Vladimir Lenin's government, Soviet Russia created Glavlit, a single agency with final authority to review newspapers, books, plays and even posters before they could be printed or performed. By 1930 no publication in the So… - July 1917: [United States postmaster bars the magazine The Masses from the mail under the Espionage Act](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/1917-us-espionage-act-bars-the-masses-from-the-mail). Weeks after the United States entered the First World War, the New York postmaster used the new Espionage Act, a law against interfering with military recruitment, to bar the socialist magazine The Masses from the mail. A judge's order pro… - 1917: [United States Postmaster General Burleson strips the Milwaukee Leader of its mailing rate](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/1917-us-burleson-mail-ban-milwaukee-leader). Postmaster General Albert Burleson used the wartime Espionage Act to strip the Milwaukee Leader, a socialist daily, of its low-cost second-class mailing rate, cutting off its main channel to readers. The Supreme Court upheld the revocation… Download this view. CSV, JSON or Markdown. CC BY 4.0; credit "The War On News, thewaronnews.com". - CSV: https://thewaronnews.com/incidents?stage=silence&view=cards&format=csv - JSON: https://thewaronnews.com/incidents.json?stage=silence&view=cards - Markdown: https://thewaronnews.com/incidents.md?stage=silence&view=cards - Incidents (RSS): https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/feed.xml - Incidents (Atom): https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/atom.xml - Incidents (JSON Feed): https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/feed.json - All incidents (CSV): https://thewaronnews.com/incidents.csv Source page: https://thewaronnews.com/incidents?stage=silence&view=cards. The War On News, CC BY 4.0.