Ladder
Ladder: detention and violence, in Asia
Arrest, detention, prosecution, imprisonment, physical harm or killing of journalists, where police, soldiers, officials or others acting for a government carried out, ordered or authorised the act. Harm by private people is recorded only when a government actor was involved.
The number of entries reflects the depth of this record, not the severity of a country's conduct.
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3Punish
Legal or physical action against individual journalists or sources: subpoenas and record seizures, prosecutions, arrests, detention, expulsions, visa denials, assault where a government actor is involved.
Philippine agents arrested Rappler executive editor Maria Ressa at the outlet's Manila office and held her overnight on a cyber libel case tied to a 2012 story, published before the cybercrime law used to charge her existed.
Note: Philippine agents arrested an outlet's executive editor at her own newsroom over a story published years before the cybercrime law used to charge her existed; United States detentions in the record ended without charges filed.
Reversed 14 February 2019 · 3 sources · Full entry
Turkish authorities detained three journalists, jailing columnist Tolga Sardan pending trial, under a 2022 law criminalizing the spread of disinformation, after the government's own disinformation-fighting body disputed their reporting on a leaked intelligence document and a story about released pr…
Ongoing · 2 sources · Full entry
On a single day in February 2025, groups of men beat at least eight journalists in two separate incidents in rural Bangladesh while they investigated a medical-negligence tip and a land dispute; the incidents came as the interim government led by Muhammad Yunus drafted new cyber ordinances rights g…
Ongoing · 1 source · Full entry
After the detention of the mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem İmamoğlu, on March 19, 2025, protests spread in Türkiye, and between March 19 and March 28, 2025, the authorities detained at least 13 journalists, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a non-profit organization in New York.
Unknown 2 April 2025 · 1 source · Full entry
On February 10, 2026, a court in India sentenced the investigative journalist Ravi Nair to one year in prison and a fine of 5,000 rupees (about US$55) for criminal defamation, an offence under which a statement that damages someone's reputation can lead to a fine or prison sentence.
Unknown 10 February 2026 · 2 sources · Full entry
4Silence
Removing outlets or channels from the public sphere: closures, licence withdrawals, forced sales, blocking and shutdowns, prior restraint, nationalisation.
In March 1913 the Ottoman government amended its 1909 press law, barring members of parliament and state officials from serving as newspaper editors and applying the ban retroactively to every periodical already in print.
Sustained 9 March 1913 · 2 sources · Full entry
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 requiring government clearance for whatever remained.
Reversed 25 February 1986 · 2 sources · Full entry
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, dismissing roughly 2,000 journalists in total.
Reversed 1 June 1987 · 2 sources · Full entry
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 seven years in prison, while denying any press controls existe…
Ongoing 1 January 1989 · 2 sources · Full entry
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 outlets were later arrested and charged under a broadened pena…
Sustained · 2 sources · Full entry
5Eliminate
Long imprisonment, killing, disappearance or forced exile of journalists, with state involvement as the sources state it.
A Baku court convicted investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova on business and tax charges and sentenced her to seven and a half years in prison, in a case CPJ said was payback for her reporting on official corruption.
Note: Azerbaijan imprisoned an investigative reporter for over a year on charges connected to her reporting on the president's family's business holdings; no United States case in the record has produced a multi-year sentence.
Reversed 25 May 2016 · 3 sources · Full entry
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 investigating the killing of Rohingya Muslim villagers.
Note: Both reporters were pardoned in May 2019 after 511 days in prison.
Reversed 7 May 2019 · 2 sources · Full entry
Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and critic of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was killed by Saudi agents inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul; the CIA concluded the crown prince ordered the killing, which Saudi Arabia denied.
Unknown · 2 sources · Full entry
China detained citizen journalist Zhang Zhan for posting independent video reports from Wuhan during the early COVID-19 outbreak, later convicting her of "picking quarrels and provoking trouble" and, after her release, detaining her again years later.
Note: China imprisoned a citizen journalist for four years over her Wuhan reporting, then opened a second case against her after release; United States detention incidents in the record ended in release the same day.
Ongoing · 2 sources · Full entry
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 forces" under the National Security Law, which China's central go…
Sustained 8 February 2026 · 5 sources · Full entry
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