The record
Incidents: prior restraint
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
United States: Department of Defense press credential rules requiring approval before release of information, September 2025
On September 19, 2025, the United States Department of Defense, the federal department that provides the country's military forces, issued new credential rules for reporters at the Pentagon, its headquarters building, under the Secretary o…
Credential control · Stage Restrict · Head of government Donald Trump · Ongoing
Bombay High Court strikes down India's government 'fact check unit' rule
India's 2023 amendment to its Information Technology Rules empowered a government-run Fact Check Unit to label online content about the central government 'fake' or 'false' and require its removal; comedian Kunal Kamra and media groups cha…
Official labels · Stage Pressure · Head of government Narendra Modi · Reversed
Türkiye: the broadcast regulator fines and suspends channels for earthquake coverage
Türkiye's broadcast regulator, RTUK, fined three television channels and suspended the next five episodes of two of their programs after they aired criticism of the government's response to the February 2023 earthquakes.
Prior restraint · Stage Pressure · Head of government Recep Tayyip Erdoğan · Sustained
Indian tax authorities search BBC offices weeks after Modi documentary ban
India's Income Tax Department searched BBC offices in Delhi and Mumbai for alleged tax evasion, three weeks after the government used emergency powers to block a BBC documentary examining Prime Minister Narendra Modi's response to 2002 com…
Surveillance and subpoenas · Stage Pressure · Head of government Narendra Modi · Unknown
Political appointees alter CDC coronavirus guidance before public release
Reporting in 2020 found that political appointees at the Department of Health and Human Services rewrote or edited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's public coronavirus guidance and its weekly scientific bulletin before relea…
Prior restraint · Stage Restrict · Head of government Donald Trump · Unknown
Egypt: a license requirement leaves an independent news site unable to operate legally for years
Egypt's Supreme Council for Media Regulation required news websites to obtain a government license to operate, and independent outlet Al-Manassa's application, filed in 2018, went unanswered for more than two years.
Prior restraint · Stage Pressure · Head of government Abdel Fattah el-Sisi · Ongoing
Israel: a court bars any mention of the 'Prisoner X' case
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…
Prior restraint · Stage Silence · Head of government Benjamin Netanyahu · Unknown
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
United States federal court bars CNN from broadcasting recordings of Manuel Noriega's calls with his lawyers
In November 1990, the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida ordered Cable News Network to stop broadcasting tape recordings of jailed former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega's telephone conversations with his de…
Prior restraint · Stage Silence · Head of government George H. W. Bush · Upheld by a court
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
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
United States judge bars the press from reporting a murder suspect's confession before trial
On October 27, 1975, Nebraska District Judge Hugh Stuart ordered news organizations covering a mass murder near Sutherland, Nebraska, not to report a suspect's confession or other evidence before jury selection. The Supreme Court of the Un…
Prior restraint · Stage Silence · Head of government J. James Exon · 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
United Kingdom court bars The Sunday Times from publishing an article on thalidomide
On November 17, 1972, the Divisional Court of the Queen's Bench Division, part of England's High Court, granted the Attorney General's request for an injunction stopping The Sunday Times from publishing an article about the drug thalidomid…
Prior restraint · Stage Silence · Head of government Edward Heath · Reversed
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 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
Brazil's military government decrees the Fifth Institutional Act and moves to control the press
On the night of December 13, 1968, Brazil's military government, led by President Artur da Costa e Silva, decreed the Fifth Institutional Act, suspending constitutional guarantees and recessing the national Congress. A United States Embass…
Prior restraint · Stage Silence · Head of government Artur da Costa e Silva · Unknown
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
West Germany: police raid Der Spiegel's offices and arrest its editors over a defense article
On October 26, 1962, West German police raided the offices of the news magazine Der Spiegel and arrested its publisher, Rudolf Augstein, after it reported that the armed forces were only "conditionally prepared" for a nuclear strike. Deput…
Detention and violence · Stage Punish · Head of government Konrad Adenauer · Unknown
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
Greece: collaborationist government creates a Directorate-General for Press and Radio to review films and publications before release
The collaborationist government installed in occupied Greece created a Directorate-General for Press and Radio to take over and expand the prior review powers of the prewar Metaxas dictatorship, requiring official permission before films,…
Prior restraint · Stage Silence · Head of government Georgios Tsolakoglou · Sustained
Canada: War Measures Act regulations authorize review of hundreds of newspapers and ban political organizations
Canada invoked the War Measures Act at the outset of the Second World War and used it to bring in the Defence of Canada Regulations, which gave the government power to review and restrict hundreds of newspapers and periodicals and to ban d…
Prior restraint · Stage Silence · Head of government William Lyon Mackenzie King · 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
United States: Supreme Court strikes down a Georgia city's permit requirement for distributing literature, 1938
The city of Griffin, Georgia, required written permission from the city manager before anyone could distribute pamphlets, circulars or magazines within its limits, treating unlicensed distribution as a punishable nuisance. Alma Lovell was…
Prior restraint · Stage Silence · Head of government Eurith D. Rivers · Reversed
Japan: government requires clearance to publish war news under the Newspaper Law, 1937
After Japan's war with China escalated into full scale conflict in July 1937, the government invoked Article 27 of the Newspaper Law to require government clearance before publishing war related news, while a Home Ministry directive to loc…
Prior restraint · Stage Silence · Head of government Fumimaro Konoe · Sustained
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
Minnesota closes The Saturday Press in 1927; the Supreme Court strikes down the law in 1931
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
Glavlit created: Soviet censorship office, 1922
In 1922, Soviet Russia created Glavlit, a single agency that reviewed newspapers, books, plays and even posters before they could be printed or performed. It was set up under Vladimir Lenin's government with final authority over what could…
Prior restraint · Stage Silence · Head of government Vladimir Lenin · Ongoing
Britain's Official Press Bureau controls newspaper coverage of the First World War
Weeks after Britain entered the First World War, Prime Minister Herbert Asquith told the House of Commons that the Official Press Bureau was the sole channel through which the Admiralty, the War Office and other departments released naval…
Prior restraint · Stage Silence · Head of government Herbert Henry Asquith · Sustained
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