Ladder: prior restraint
An order or rule that stops something from being published before it appears, rather than penalising it afterwards. Examples are boards that must approve articles, books or films before release, court injunctions against publication, and rules that require officials to review material before it is published.
The number of entries reflects the depth of this record, not the severity of a country's conduct.
Restrict
Limiting access or credentials for particular reporters or outlets: bans from briefings or buildings, pool changes, credential revocations, accreditation refusals.
| Date | Country | Head of government | What was done | Outcome | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| February 10, 2003 | Focal case United States (RSF 2026 rank: 64th of 180) | George W. Bush | 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. Full entry | Sustained (April 14, 2003) | 1 |
| September 12, 2020 | Focal case United States (RSF 2026 rank: 64th of 180) | Donald Trump | 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 release, bypassing the agency's normal scientific review. Full entry | Unknown | 2 |
| September 19, 2025 | Focal case United States (RSF 2026 rank: 64th of 180) | Donald Trump | 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 of Defense, Pete Hegseth. Full entry | Ongoing (April 9, 2026) | 5 |
Pressure
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.
| Date | Country | Head of government | What was done | Outcome | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| December 19, 1941 | Focal case United States (RSF 2026 rank: 64th of 180) | Franklin D. Roosevelt | Twelve days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt created the Office of Censorship. Full entry | Sustained (September 28, 1945) | 2 |
| February 14, 2023 | India (RSF 2026 rank: 157th of 180) | Narendra Modi | 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 communal violence. Full entry | Unknown | 1 |
| March 2024 | India (RSF 2026 rank: 157th of 180) | Narendra Modi | 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 challenged it, and the Bombay High Court struck the rule down a… Full entry | Reversed (September 20, 2024) | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1927 | Focal case United States (RSF 2026 rank: 64th of 180) | Theodore Christianson | A Hennepin County attorney used Minnesota's 1925 Public Nuisance Law to shut down The Saturday Press, a Minneapolis paper accusing officials of corruption. Full entry | Reversed (June 1, 1931) | 1 |
| June 15, 1971 | Focal case United States (RSF 2026 rank: 64th of 180) | Richard Nixon | 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. Full entry | Reversed (June 30, 1971) | 2 |
| 1922 | Russia (RSF 2026 rank: 172nd of 180) | Vladimir Lenin | In 1922, under Vladimir Lenin's government, Soviet Russia created Glavlit, a single agency with final authority to review newspapers, books, plays and even posters before they could be printed or performed. Full entry | Ongoing (January 1, 1989) | 2 |
| 1933 | Portugal (RSF 2026 rank: 10th of 180) | António de Oliveira Salazar | 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. Full entry | Reversed (April 25, 1974) | 2 |
| April 1938 | Spain (RSF 2026 rank: 29th of 180) | Francisco Franco | 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… Full entry | Reversed (April 1, 1977) | 1 |
| 1939 | Brazil (RSF 2026 rank: 52nd of 180) | Getúlio Vargas | 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. Full entry | Reversed (January 1, 1945) | 2 |
| April 16, 1944 | Australia (RSF 2026 rank: 33rd of 180) | John Curtin | Australia's wartime government, under Prime Minister John Curtin, controlled press coverage of military events through the Department of Information. Full entry | Reversed (April 18, 1944) | 2 |
| 1948 | Israel (RSF 2026 rank: 116th of 180) | David Ben-Gurion | 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 through an Editors' Committee that let most Israeli newspapers s… Full entry | Ongoing (January 1, 1989) | 1 |
| March 17, 1950 | South Africa (RSF 2026 rank: 21st of 180) | Daniel François Malan | 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. Full entry | Reversed (February 2, 1990) | 2 |
| August 21, 1968 | Czechia (RSF 2026 rank: 11th of 180) | Alexander Dubček | 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 press controls. Full entry | Reversed (November 1, 1989) | 2 |
| September 21, 1972 | Philippines (RSF 2026 rank: 114th of 180) | Ferdinand Marcos | 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. Full entry | Reversed (February 25, 1986) | 2 |
| June 26, 1975 | India (RSF 2026 rank: 157th of 180) | 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 | Reversed (March 21, 1977) | 1 |
| September 18, 1988 | Myanmar (RSF 2026 rank: 166th of 180) | Saw Maung | 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… Full entry | Ongoing (January 1, 1989) | 2 |
| October 1988 | United Kingdom (RSF 2026 rank: 18th of 180) | Margaret Thatcher | 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. Full entry | Reversed (September 16, 1994) | 1 |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| March 24, 1976 | Argentina (RSF 2026 rank: 98th of 180) | Jorge Rafael Videla | 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. Full entry | Reversed (December 10, 1983) | 2 |
All ladders · Prior restraint: by country and year · The United States chapter