Ladder
Ladder: expulsion and visa denial
A government expels correspondents who report from its territory for news organisations based in other countries, refuses them visas or accreditation, or declines to renew their permission to stay. The effect is less independent reporting from inside the country.
The number of entries reflects the depth of this record, not the severity of a country's conduct.
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1Restrict
Limiting access or credentials for particular reporters or outlets: bans from briefings or buildings, pool changes, credential revocations, accreditation refusals.
Since the war in Gaza began in October 2023, the government of Israel has barred foreign journalists from entering the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian territory on the Mediterranean coast between Israel and Egypt, independently; foreign correspondents have entered only on trips escorted by the Israeli…
Sustained 25 February 2026 · 3 sources · Full entry
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.
Emma Goldman, editor of the anarchist magazine Mother Earth, was convicted with fellow anarchist Alexander Berkman of conspiring against the newly enacted Selective Draft Law and received the maximum two year sentence and a ten thousand dollar fine.
Upheld by a court 14 January 1918 · 2 sources · Full entry
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 correspondent John Pomfret and Voice of America correspondent Al…
Sustained 1 January 1990 · 1 source · Full entry
After Iran's disputed June 2009 presidential election produced mass protests, the government expelled BBC correspondent Jon Leyne, revoked foreign press credentials, confined most foreign journalists to office-based reporting, and blocked access to numerous websites.
Unknown · 2 sources · Full entry
During 2016 to 2018 protests against President Nicolas Maduro's government, Venezuelan authorities expelled, deported or denied entry to dozens of foreign correspondents, most citing bureaucratic pretexts such as visa irregularities rather than a stated substantive reason.
Ongoing 25 January 2018 · 1 source · Full entry
A coordinated online campaign accused freelance correspondent Carl David Goette-Luciak of being a foreign agent and circulated his home address, after which he was detained and deported from Nicaragua in September 2018.
Note: A freelance correspondent's home address was circulated online in a coordinated campaign, then he was detained and deported from Nicaragua; no comparable United States action in the record has removed a journalist from the country.
Sustained 30 September 2018 · 3 sources · Full entry
Turkish authorities detained Dutch freelance journalist Ans Boersma while she tried to renew her residence permit in Istanbul and deported her the next day, citing an alleged link to a Syrian armed group that the Netherlands said it had never been asked about.
Note: A foreign correspondent was detained overnight and deported on an allegation her own government said it was never asked to confirm; the White House ban has not deported a journalist from the country.
Sustained 17 January 2019 · 2 sources · Full entry
India's government cancelled writer and journalist Aatish Taseer's Overseas Citizen of India status months after he wrote a Time magazine cover story critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, citing his father's Pakistani nationality.
Note: India revoked a journalist's long-term immigration status months after his cover story criticized the prime minister; the White House ban withdrew building access, not legal status to enter the country.
Sustained 7 November 2019 · 3 sources · Full entry
China ordered American correspondents for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post to leave the country, in a reciprocal response to the Trump administration capping the number of Chinese state-media employees allowed in the United States, which itself followed China's ea…
Sustained · 1 source · Full entry
Ethiopia's media regulator revoked The Economist correspondent Tom Gardner's press accreditation and gave him 48 hours to leave the country, citing unspecified conduct, almost a year after expelling a New York Times reporter.
Note: Ethiopia gave a foreign correspondent 48 hours to leave over unspecified conduct, the second such expulsion in a year; the White House ban restricted access to the briefing room, not to the country itself.
Sustained 13 May 2022 · 2 sources · Full entry
Russian authorities ordered the Canadian broadcaster CBC/Radio-Canada's Moscow bureau closed and cancelled its journalists' visas and accreditation, part of a wave of expulsions and non-renewals of foreign correspondents after the invasion of Ukraine.
Note: Russia closed a foreign broadcaster's bureau and cancelled its journalists' visas and accreditation after Canada imposed sanctions; the September 2026 White House ban restricted building access but did not remove any outlet's staff from the country.
Sustained 18 May 2022 · 3 sources · Full entry
In the two weeks after Venezuela's disputed July 28, 2024 presidential election, Reporters Without Borders documented 70 press-freedom violations, including nine detentions, nine expulsions of foreign correspondents and the suspension of the social media platform X, as President Nicolas Maduro's go…
Sustained · 2 sources · 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
5Eliminate
Long imprisonment, killing, disappearance or forced exile of journalists, with state involvement as the sources state it.
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 after security forces raided the station on November 28, 198…
Reversed 1 February 1986 · 3 sources · Full entry
A Nicaraguan appeals court stripped 94 government opponents, including exiled journalists Carlos Fernando Chamorro and Alvaro Navarro, of their citizenship, days after President Daniel Ortega released 222 political prisoners to the United States and immediately declared them stateless too.
Sustained · 2 sources · Full entry
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