Ladder
Ladder: secrets and espionage laws, in Asia
Laws that make it a crime to obtain, keep or disclose information a government has classified as secret, such as the Espionage Act, a 1917 United States law against disclosing defence information, or the Official Secrets Acts of the United Kingdom. Governments use them to prosecute journalists or, more often, the officials who gave journalists information.
The number of entries reflects the depth of this record, not the severity of a country's conduct.
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4Silence
Removing outlets or channels from the public sphere: closures, licence withdrawals, forced sales, blocking and shutdowns, prior restraint, nationalisation.
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.
Sustained 1 January 1926 · 2 sources · Full entry
5Eliminate
Long imprisonment, killing, disappearance or forced exile of journalists, with state involvement as the sources state it.
A North Korean court sentenced Current TV journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee to twenty years of "reform through hard labor" after their arrest for crossing the border from China without authorization, and both were released months later following a visit by former President Bill Clinton.
Note: Two foreign journalists received a twenty-year hard-labor sentence for a border charge, resolved only by a former head of state's personal visit to the country's leader.
Reversed 4 August 2009 · 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
A Vietnamese court sentenced Pham Doan Trang, founding editor of the independent outlet The Vietnamese, to nine years in prison for distributing anti-state "propaganda" under a national-security provision of the country's penal code.
Note: An independent editor received a nine-year sentence under a national-security speech law for her journalism, not a licensing or credential dispute.
Sustained 14 December 2021 · 2 sources · Full entry
Iranian journalists Niloofar Hamedi and Elahe Mohammadi, who broke the story of Mahsa Amini's death in police custody, were sentenced to 13 and 12 years respectively on national-security-linked charges tied to their reporting, and later released on heavy bail.
Note: Two journalists received sentences of 12 and 13 years for reporting a death in state custody, far beyond a license, credential or access restriction.
Ongoing 17 January 2024 · 3 sources · Full entry
A Chinese court sentenced Guangming Daily editor and columnist Dong Yuyu to seven years in prison for espionage after his 2022 arrest while having lunch with a Japanese diplomat, a case his son called purely political.
Note: A veteran editor received a seven-year espionage sentence for meeting a foreign diplomat over lunch, a routine journalistic contact rather than any published disclosure.
Ongoing 1 November 2024 · 3 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
All ladders · Secrets and espionage laws: by country and year · The United States chapter