Search: licensing and closure of outlets in Asia
The number of entries reflects the depth of this record, not the severity of a country's conduct.
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China (Hong Kong): conviction and 20-year sentence of the media owner Jimmy Lai under the National Security Law, 2025 to 2026
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 force…
Detention and violence · Stage Eliminate · Head of government John Lee · Sustained
Pakistan amends cybercrime law to create new agency policing 'fake' online content
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 informatio…
Official labels · Stage Punish · Head of government Shehbaz Sharif · Sustained
Cambodia: Prime Minister Hun Sen orders Voice of Democracy's license revoked over one article
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.
Licensing and closure of outlets · Stage Silence · Head of government Hun Sen · Sustained
China (Hong Kong): Apple Daily closes after its assets are frozen under the national security law
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.
Licensing and closure of outlets · Stage Silence · Head of government Carrie Lam · Sustained
Myanmar junta revokes five outlets' licenses and raids newsrooms after coup
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 ou…
Licensing and closure of outlets · Stage Silence · Head of government Min Aung Hlaing · Sustained
Cambodia's government forces the closure of The Cambodia Daily with a disputed multimillion-dollar tax bill
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 aga…
Licensing and closure of outlets · Stage Silence · Head of government Hun Sen · Sustained
Turkey closes more than 100 media outlets by decree after a failed coup attempt
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…
Licensing and closure of outlets · Stage Silence · Head of government Recep Tayyip Erdoğan · Sustained
South Korea's martial-law government purges journalists who resisted press controls
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, dism…
Licensing and closure of outlets · Stage Silence · Head of government Chun Doo-hwan · Reversed
India imposes pre-press controls on every newspaper during the 1975 Emergency
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 t…
Prior restraint · Stage Silence · Head of government Indira Gandhi · Reversed