Ladder
Ladder: insult and defamation laws
Laws that make it a crime, not only a civil wrong, to damage a person's reputation, to insult a head of state or a monarch (known as lèse-majesté), or to publish information that a government declares false, including laws against "fake news". Convictions can bring fines or prison.
The number of entries reflects the depth of this record, not the severity of a country's conduct.
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2Pressure
Using state power short of prosecution to change coverage: regulatory threats, licence reviews, funding cuts, lawsuits by officials, official "fake news" or "foreign agent" labels, advertising pressure, tax audits.
Ecuador's National Assembly passed the Organic Communication Law under President Rafael Correa, creating the Superintendency of Information and Communication (SUPERCOM), a regulator that issued more than 675 sanctions against journalists and media outlets over the following four years.
Reversed 20 February 2019 · 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.
President Theodore Roosevelt sought federal criminal libel indictments against the publishers of the New York World and the Indianapolis News after they reported that he and other officials had profited from the United States' purchase of the Panama Canal.
Reversed 3 January 1911 · 3 sources · Full entry
L. B. Sullivan, an elected Montgomery, Alabama city commissioner who supervised the police department, sued The New York Times for libel over a 1960 civil rights advertisement and won a $500,000 jury verdict.
Reversed 9 March 1964 · 2 sources · Full entry
The United States colonial government in the Philippines enacted a criminal libel law in 1901 that Governor-General William Howard Taft defended by saying Filipinos were unused to the freedom of the press.
Upheld by a court 1 January 1914 · 2 sources · Full entry
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 than pro-government ones.
Reversed 1 October 2000 · 2 sources · Full entry
Hungary's parliament passed an emergency coronavirus law allowing prison terms of up to five years for spreading information the government deemed false or distorted about the pandemic, and let Prime Minister Viktor Orban rule by decree for an unlimited period.
Unknown · 3 sources · Full entry
Turkish journalist Sedef Kabas was arrested and later convicted under Article 299 of the penal code, which criminalizes insulting the president, after quoting a proverb about a palace becoming a stable during a televised discussion of Erdogan.
Note: A journalist was jailed overnight and convicted under a criminal insult law for one televised remark about the head of state, with prosecution continuing over a year later.
Ongoing 22 June 2023 · 3 sources · Full entry
Russia's parliament passed a law criminalizing the publication of information about the military that contradicts official statements, with penalties up to 15 years in prison, prompting Novaya Gazeta to pull its Ukraine war coverage and the BBC, CNN and other outlets to suspend operations inside Ru…
Sustained · 2 sources · Full entry
President Emmerson Mnangagwa signed the Patriotic Act, which criminalizes meeting foreign governments or officials with intent to harm Zimbabwe's sovereignty, with penalties up to death for advocating armed intervention and up to ten years for supporting sanctions, weeks before the country's 2023 g…
Sustained 14 July 2023 · 2 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
A Hong Kong court convicted former Stand News editors Chung Pui-kuen and Patrick Lam of conspiring to publish seditious material, under a colonial-era law, over articles the outlet had run before police raided its newsroom and it closed at the end of 2021.
Upheld by a court 26 September 2024 · 2 sources · Full entry
The Committee to Protect Journalists found at least four journalists imprisoned under Tunisia's 2022 Decree-Law 54 on cybercrime as of January 2025, including radio hosts Mourad Zghidi and Borhen Bsaies, pushing the country's jailed-journalist count to its highest since 1992 under President Kais Sa…
Sustained · 2 sources · 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.
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-publication press controls and years-long prison terms for va…
Reversed 1 April 1977 · 1 source · Full entry
5Eliminate
Long imprisonment, killing, disappearance or forced exile of journalists, with state involvement as the sources state it.
A Thai court sentenced magazine editor Somyot Prueksakasemsuk to 11 years in prison under Article 112 of the penal code, the country's lese-majeste law barring insults to the royal family, over two articles he published under a pen name.
Note: An editor received an 11-year sentence under a royal insult law for articles written by someone else, and served the sentence in full before release.
Upheld by a court 30 April 2018 · 3 sources · Full entry
A Belarusian court sentenced dual Belarusian-Polish journalist Andrzej Poczobut to eight years in prison on charges of inciting hatred and calling for sanctions, and he was freed three years later as part of a multi-country prisoner exchange.
Note: A journalist was imprisoned for about five years on a hatred and sanctions charge, and his release required an eight-country prisoner exchange rather than any domestic legal process.
Reversed 28 April 2026 · 3 sources · Full entry
A Russian court sentenced journalist Maria Ponomarenko to six years in prison and a five-year ban on journalism under a law criminalizing "false information" about the military, after she published a Telegram post about an airstrike on a Mariupol theater that Russia denies carrying out.
Note: A journalist received a six-year sentence and a five-year professional ban under a wartime false-information law for one social media post, not a fine or license action.
Sustained 15 February 2023 · 2 sources · Full entry
All ladders · Insult and defamation laws: by country and year · The United States chapter