The record
Incidents
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.
All filters: country, dates, head of government, sort
Zimbabwe: police close the Daily News under the media registration law
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.
Licensing and closure of outlets · Stage Silence · Head of government Robert Mugabe · Reversed
Pentagon sets ground rules for journalists embedded with United States forces in Iraq
Ahead of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Pentagon assigned about 600 journalists to travel with United States military units under written ground rules restricting what they could report about troop numbers, operations and casualties.
Access bans · Stage Restrict · Head of government George W. Bush · Sustained
Zimbabwe enacts a law requiring all journalists and media houses to hold government licenses
Zimbabwe's parliament passed the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), requiring every journalist and media company to obtain a government license renewed every two years, weeks before a closely contested 2002 presid…
Licensing and closure of outlets · Stage Pressure · Head of government Robert Mugabe · Unknown
Eritrea: independent press closed and journalists jailed without trial
Eritrea's government closed every private newspaper and jailed at least nineteen journalists, including Dawit Isaac of the paper Setit, without charge or trial in September 2001, after suspending the constitution. Several have never been p…
Detention and violence · Stage Eliminate · Head of government Isaias Afwerki · Ongoing
State-controlled Gazprom takes formal control of Russia's independent NTV television network
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…
Funding and ownership pressure · Stage Silence · Head of government Vladimir Putin · Sustained
Serbia's Public Information Act lets courts fine independent newspapers into financial danger
Serbia's parliament passed a Public Information Act allowing courts to levy same-day fines against newspapers for vaguely defined offenses against the state's interests, and independent papers were fined far more often and more heavily tha…
Insult and defamation laws · Stage Punish · Head of government Slobodan Milosevic · Reversed
Malaysia pressures domestic media and monitors foreign correspondents after arresting former deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim
After Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's government arrested former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim in September 1998, party-linked newspapers pressured staff to follow the official line, police visited journalists who interviewed his w…
Surveillance and subpoenas · Stage Pressure · Head of government Mahathir Mohamad · Unknown
Nigeria's military government convicts journalists by special tribunal over coup-plot reporting
A special military tribunal convicted four Nigerian journalists as accessories to a supposed 1995 coup plot after they reported on it, sentencing them to lengthy prison terms with no right of appeal, under the military government of Genera…
Detention and violence · Stage Eliminate · Head of government Sani Abacha · Reversed
United States military restricts reporters to escorted press pools during the Gulf War
The U.S. military required reporters covering the 1991 Gulf War to work in escorted "pools" rather than move freely, reviewed pool dispatches before release, and reporters who left the pools were captured or detained.
Access bans · Stage Restrict · Head of government George H. W. Bush · Sustained
China expels foreign journalists and restricts coverage of the Tiananmen Square protests
After declaring martial law in Beijing on May 20, 1989, China's government imposed rigid restrictions on coverage of pro-democracy protests and, following the military's June 3-4 clearing of Tiananmen Square, expelled Associated Press corr…
Expulsion and visa denial · Stage Punish · Head of government Li Peng · Sustained
United Kingdom bars broadcasters from airing Sinn Féin members' own voices
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…
Licensing and closure of outlets · Stage Silence · Head of government Margaret Thatcher · Reversed
Burma's new military government tightens pre-publication press controls after seizing power
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…
Prior restraint · Stage Silence · Head of government Saw Maung · Ongoing
South Africa bans television and photographic coverage of unrest under a state of emergency
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…
Shutdowns and blocking · Stage Silence · Head of government P. W. Botha · Reversed
United States military bars journalists from the invasion of Grenada
When United States forces invaded the Caribbean island of Grenada on October 25, 1983, military commanders kept all journalists away from the island for the first two days of fighting, citing operational reasons. Protests from news organiz…
Access bans · Stage Restrict · Head of government Ronald Reagan · Reversed
Poland's martial law government shuts nearly all newspapers and interns journalists overnight
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…
Shutdowns and blocking · Stage Silence · Head of government Wojciech Jaruzelski · Reversed
Haiti's Duvalier government arrests and deports Radio Haiti-Inter staff, driving its director into exile
Under President Jean-Claude Duvalier, Haitian authorities arrested and deported staff of Radio Haiti-Inter, an independent station that had reported critically on the government, forcing its director, journalist Jean Dominique, into exile…
Expulsion and visa denial · Stage Eliminate · Head of government Jean-Claude Duvalier · Reversed
South Korea's martial-law government purges journalists who resisted press controls
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…
Licensing and closure of outlets · Stage Silence · Head of government Chun Doo-hwan · Reversed
Argentina's military junta threatens journalists with prison for reporting on its opponents
Hours after seizing power on March 24, 1976, Argentina's military junta, led by General Jorge Videla, issued Communiqué No. 19, threatening up to 10 years in prison for reporting favorable to groups it called subversive. Hundreds of journa…
Detention and violence · Stage Eliminate · Head of government Jorge Rafael Videla · Reversed
India imposes pre-press controls on every newspaper during the 1975 Emergency
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…
Prior restraint · Stage Silence · Head of government Indira Gandhi · Reversed
Chile's military government shuts opposition radio stations and newspapers after the 1973 coup
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…
Shutdowns and blocking · Stage Silence · Head of government Augusto Pinochet · Sustained
Philippines President Marcos closes every major news outlet under martial law
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…
Shutdowns and blocking · Stage Silence · Head of government Ferdinand Marcos · Reversed
United States: Nixon White House "enemies list" naming journalists, September 1971
On September 9, 1971, the office of Charles Colson, special counsel to the president of the United States, Richard Nixon, sent White House Counsel John Dean, the president's lawyer on official matters, a memorandum naming 20 people as an i…
Surveillance and subpoenas · Stage Pressure · Head of government Richard Nixon · Unknown
Nixon White House compiles an enemies list naming journalists for official pressure
White House Counsel John Dean wrote a memo on how to use federal agencies against President Nixon's political opponents, and the resulting list of more than 200 names included journalists such as CBS News correspondent Daniel Schorr. It be…
Surveillance and subpoenas · Stage Pressure · Head of government Richard Nixon · Reversed
United States government seeks an injunction to stop The New York Times publishing the Pentagon Papers
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…
Prior restraint · Stage Silence · Head of government Richard Nixon · Reversed
United States Supreme Court rules reporters have no privilege to refuse grand jury subpoenas
Louisville Courier-Journal reporter Paul Branzburg was subpoenaed by a Kentucky grand jury, a body that investigates possible crimes, after he wrote about drug users he had observed. The Supreme Court ruled in 1972 that the First Amendment…
Surveillance and subpoenas · Stage Punish · Head of government Richard Nixon · Upheld by a court
Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia is followed by the return of government press controls
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…
Prior restraint · Stage Silence · Head of government Alexander Dubček · Reversed
Egypt's Nasser government nationalizes every newspaper and magazine in the country
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…
Funding and ownership pressure · Stage Silence · Head of government Gamal Abdel Nasser · Ongoing
United States Senate panel subpoenas dozens of New York Times journalists over Communist ties
The Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, led by Senator James Eastland, issued 35 subpoenas over past or present Communist Party ties in the press, and 26 of them went to New York Times staff. The newspaper protested but several employee…
Surveillance and subpoenas · Stage Punish · Head of government Dwight D. Eisenhower · Sustained
South Africa's Suppression of Communism Act lets the government ban publications and restrict individuals
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…
Prior restraint · Stage Silence · Head of government Daniel François Malan · Reversed
Israel retains a British-era law giving the military the power to review and restrict the press
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…
Prior restraint · Stage Silence · Head of government David Ben-Gurion · Ongoing
Australia's wartime government seizes a Sydney newspaper edition under press controls rules
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…
Prior restraint · Stage Silence · Head of government John Curtin · Reversed
United States creates an Office of Censorship and a wartime code for the press
Twelve days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt created the Office of Censorship. Its director, Byron Price, a former Associated Press editor, wrote a Code of Wartime Practices asking newspapers and broadcasters…
Prior restraint · Stage Pressure · Head of government Franklin D. Roosevelt · Sustained
Brazil's Vargas government creates a state messaging department with broad press powers
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…
Licensing and closure of outlets · Stage Silence · Head of government Getúlio Vargas · Reversed
Franco's Spain requires state permission to be a journalist under a wartime 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…
Credential control · Stage Silence · Head of government Francisco Franco · Reversed
Nazi Germany's Editors Law bars Jewish journalists from the press and puts editors under state direction
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…
Credential control · Stage Silence · Head of government Adolf Hitler · Reversed
Portugal's Salazar government formally establishes press controls under a new constitution
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…
Prior restraint · Stage Silence · Head of government António de Oliveira Salazar · Reversed
United States Supreme Court strikes down a Minnesota law used to shut a newspaper
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…
Prior restraint · Stage Silence · Head of government Theodore Christianson · Reversed
Soviet Russia creates Glavlit, a central office to review all printed material before publication
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…
Prior restraint · Stage Silence · Head of government Vladimir Lenin · Ongoing
United States postmaster bars the magazine The Masses from the mail under the Espionage Act
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…
Secrets and espionage laws · Stage Silence · Head of government Woodrow Wilson · Upheld by a court
United States Postmaster General Burleson strips the Milwaukee Leader of its mailing rate
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…
Shutdowns and blocking · Stage Silence · Head of government Woodrow Wilson · Upheld by a court
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