Search: lawsuits against the press, national level
The number of entries reflects the depth of this record, not the severity of a country's conduct.
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Kazakhstan: fabricated copyright complaints used against journalists
An investigation found paid services in Kazakhstan filing fabricated copyright complaints, impersonating global brands, to get social media platforms to remove journalists' accounts and posts, alongside criminal prosecutions of the press.
Lawsuits against the press · Stage Pressure · Head of government Kassym-Jomart Tokayev · Ongoing
Trump files, then refiles, $15 billion defamation suit against the New York Times
President Trump sued The New York Times and four of its journalists for $15 billion over articles and a book published before the 2024 election; a judge dismissed the sprawling original complaint for violating basic pleading rules, and Tru…
Lawsuits against the press · Stage Pressure · Head of government Donald Trump · Ongoing
Trump sues Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch over Epstein birthday letter story
President Trump sued The Wall Street Journal, its owner Rupert Murdoch and two reporters for at least $10 billion, disputing the newspaper's report describing a bawdy letter he was said to have sent Jeffrey Epstein for a 2003 birthday albu…
Lawsuits against the press · Stage Pressure · Head of government Donald Trump · Ongoing
United States: Paramount settlement of Donald Trump's lawsuit over a 60 Minutes interview, July 2025
On July 1, 2025, Paramount, the parent company of the United States broadcaster CBS News, announced that it would settle for US$16 million a lawsuit brought by Donald Trump, the president of the United States, over how the CBS program 60 M…
Lawsuits against the press · Stage Pressure · Head of government Donald Trump · Sustained
60 Minutes executive producer resigns, citing lost editorial independence
60 Minutes executive producer Bill Owens resigned, saying corporate owner Paramount had begun supervising the program's content in new ways while it faced President Trump's lawsuit over a Harris interview and pursued a sale requiring feder…
Funding and ownership pressure · Stage Pressure · Head of government Donald Trump · Sustained
Trump sues Des Moines Register and pollster Ann Selzer over final Iowa poll
President-elect Trump sued the Des Moines Register and longtime pollster Ann Selzer under Iowa's consumer fraud law over her final pre-election poll, which showed Kamala Harris ahead in Iowa days before Trump won the state; a judge later q…
Lawsuits against the press · Stage Pressure · Head of government Donald Trump · Ongoing
Türkiye: journalist Sedef Kabas tried for insulting the president
Turkish authorities tried journalist Sedef Kabas repeatedly for insulting President Erdogan over her on-air comments and tweets questioning his college diploma and alleging corruption, an offense carrying up to four years in prison.
Lawsuits against the press · Stage Punish · Head of government Recep Tayyip Erdoğan · Ongoing
Philippines: Maria Ressa convicted of cyber libel
A Manila court convicted Rappler's Maria Ressa and researcher Reynaldo Santos Jr. of criminal cyber libel and sentenced them to up to six years in prison, over a 2012 story republished after the cybercrime law used to charge them took effe…
Lawsuits against the press · Stage Punish · Head of government Rodrigo Duterte · Ongoing
Russia: outlet fined $338,000 under the foreign agents law
A Moscow court fined the magazine The New Times 22.3 million rubles, about $338,000, for a paperwork lapse under Russia's foreign agents law, a sum its editor said was designed to force the outlet to close.
Lawsuits against the press · Stage Pressure · Head of government Vladimir Putin · Ongoing
Malta: minister orders reporter's bank account frozen
A month after journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia published reporting on members of Malta's government, the economy minister had her bank account frozen, one of dozens of legal actions she faced before she was killed in a car bombing in Octo…
Lawsuits against the press · Stage Pressure · Head of government Joseph Muscat · Unknown
United States: President Theodore Roosevelt seeks criminal libel indictments against the New York World and the Indianapolis News over Panama Canal reporting
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…
Insult and defamation laws · Stage Punish · Head of government Theodore Roosevelt · Reversed
Philippines: United States colonial government's libel law is used to close the newspaper El Renacimiento
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. The law was used in 1908 to convi…
Insult and defamation laws · Stage Punish · Head of government William Howard Taft · Upheld by a court