# Ladder: licensing and closure of outlets, in Asia

A government requires newspapers, broadcasters or news websites to register or to hold a licence, and uses that power to refuse, suspend or cancel it, or to close the outlet. Broadcast licences, which governments issue because radio and television frequencies are limited, are a common lever.

The number of entries reflects the depth of this record, not the severity of a country's conduct.

Narrow with ?stage= (restrict, pressure, punish, silence, eliminate), ?continent=, ?from= and ?to= (year or date).

## Punish

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.

| Date | Country | Head of government | What was done | Outcome | Sources |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 29 January 2025 | [Pakistan](https://thewaronnews.com/countries/pk) ([RSF 2026 rank: 153rd of 180](https://rsf.org/en/index)) | [Shehbaz Sharif](https://thewaronnews.com/leaders/shehbaz-sharif) | Pakistan's parliament amended the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act to create a new Social Media Protection and Regulatory Authority with power to block online content and a Social Media Protection Tribunal, and made spreading information deemed 'fake or false' punishable by up to three years in… [Full entry](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2025-pakistan-amends-peca-cybercrime-law) | Sustained | 2 |

## Silence

Removing outlets or channels from the public sphere: closures, licence withdrawals, forced sales, blocking and shutdowns, prior restraint, nationalisation.

| Date | Country | Head of government | What was done | Outcome | Sources |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 9 March 1913 | [Türkiye](https://thewaronnews.com/countries/tr) ([RSF 2026 rank: 163rd of 180](https://rsf.org/en/index)) | [Mehmed V](https://thewaronnews.com/leaders/mehmed-v) | 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. [Full entry](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/1913-ottoman-empire-press-law-bars-officials-from-editing-newspapers) | Sustained (9 March 1913) | 2 |
| 1926 | [Indonesia](https://thewaronnews.com/countries/id) (RSF rank: not recorded) | [Andries Cornelis Dirk de Graeff](https://thewaronnews.com/leaders/andries-de-graeff) | In 1926, colonial authorities in the Dutch East Indies ended publication of Mawa, a newspaper linked to the Communist Association of the Indies in Soerakarta, through repeated use of Article 153 bis of the colonial Penal Code, which criminalized advocating the overthrow of the government. [Full entry](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/1926-dutch-east-indies-mawa-article-153bis) | Sustained (1 January 1926) | 2 |
| 26 June 1975 | [India](https://thewaronnews.com/countries/in) ([RSF 2026 rank: 157th of 180](https://rsf.org/en/index)) | [Indira Gandhi](https://thewaronnews.com/leaders/indira-gandhi) | 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 the country's news agencies into one. [Full entry](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/1975-india-emergency-press-censorship) | Reversed (21 March 1977) | 1 |
| 31 July 1980 | [South Korea](https://thewaronnews.com/countries/kr) ([RSF 2026 rank: 47th of 180](https://rsf.org/en/index)) | [Chun Doo-hwan](https://thewaronnews.com/leaders/chun-doo-hwan) | 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. [Full entry](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/1980-south-korea-chun-doo-hwan-press-purge) | Reversed (1 June 1987) | 2 |
| 1987 | [Malaysia](https://thewaronnews.com/countries/my) ([RSF 2026 rank: 95th of 180](https://rsf.org/en/index)) | [Mahathir Mohamad](https://thewaronnews.com/leaders/mahathir-mohamad) | Malaysia's government amended the Printing Presses and Publications Act in 1987 to expand its power to ban or restrict publications and to bar any court challenge to the suspension or revocation of a publishing permit. [Full entry](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/1987-malaysia-printing-act-bars-court-review) | Sustained | 2 |
| 27 July 2016 | [Türkiye](https://thewaronnews.com/countries/tr) ([RSF 2026 rank: 163rd of 180](https://rsf.org/en/index)) | [Recep Tayyip Erdoğan](https://thewaronnews.com/leaders/recep-tayyip-erdogan) | After a failed July 2016 coup attempt, Turkey's government closed more than 100 newspapers, television and radio stations, news agencies and publishing houses by state-of-emergency decree, citing alleged links to the movement it blamed for the coup. [Full entry](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2016-turkey-post-coup-media-closures) | Sustained (31 December 2016) | 2 |
| 4 September 2017 | [Cambodia](https://thewaronnews.com/countries/kh) ([RSF 2026 rank: 151st of 180](https://rsf.org/en/index)) | [Hun Sen](https://thewaronnews.com/leaders/hun-sen) | Cambodia's tax authority presented the independent, English-language Cambodia Daily with a $6.3 million bill the paper called arbitrary and undocumented, forcing the 24-year-old newspaper to close rather than pay, amid a wider campaign against independent media before 2018 elections. [Full entry](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2017-cambodia-daily-closed-tax-bill) | Sustained (4 September 2017) | 2 |
| 8 March 2021 | [Myanmar](https://thewaronnews.com/countries/mm) ([RSF 2026 rank: 166th of 180](https://rsf.org/en/index)) | [Min Aung Hlaing](https://thewaronnews.com/leaders/min-aung-hlaing) | 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… [Full entry](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2021-myanmar-junta-revokes-media-licenses) | Sustained | 2 |
| 24 June 2021 | [Hong Kong](https://thewaronnews.com/countries/hk) ([RSF 2026 rank: 140th of 180](https://rsf.org/en/index)) | [Carrie Lam](https://thewaronnews.com/leaders/carrie-lam) | Apple Daily, Hong Kong's largest pro-democracy newspaper, printed its final edition after the government froze its parent company's assets and arrested its editors under the national security law imposed on the territory in 2020. Note: A newspaper's assets were frozen and its senior editors charged with offenses carrying up to life imprisonment, ending publication entirely rather than a licensing dispute or fine. [Full entry](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2021-hong-kong-apple-daily-forced-closure) | Sustained (24 June 2021) | 3 |
| 13 February 2023 | [Cambodia](https://thewaronnews.com/countries/kh) ([RSF 2026 rank: 151st of 180](https://rsf.org/en/index)) | [Hun Sen](https://thewaronnews.com/leaders/hun-sen) | Prime Minister Hun Sen personally ordered the license of independent outlet Voice of Democracy revoked over an article about an earthquake-aid agreement signed by his son, rejecting the outlet's published apology. Note: The head of government personally ordered a national outlet's operating license revoked over one article, rejecting a published apology, rather than pursuing a defamation suit. [Full entry](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2023-cambodia-shutters-voice-of-democracy) | Sustained (13 February 2023) | 2 |

## Eliminate

Long imprisonment, killing, disappearance or forced exile of journalists, with state involvement as the sources state it.

| Date | Country | Head of government | What was done | Outcome | Sources |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 15 December 2025 | [Hong Kong](https://thewaronnews.com/countries/hk) ([RSF 2026 rank: 140th of 180](https://rsf.org/en/index)) | [John Lee](https://thewaronnews.com/leaders/john-lee) | 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… [Full entry](https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2025-hong-kong-convicts-jimmy-lai-under-national-security-law) | Sustained (8 February 2026) | 5 |

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