Search, stage: silence, outcome sustained
The number of entries reflects the depth of this record, not the severity of a country's conduct.
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Milei's government shuts down Argentina's state news agency Telam
President Javier Milei's government fenced off and shut down Telam, Argentina's state-owned news agency, calling it a public-relations operation for the prior Kirchnerist governments; unions and journalist groups called the closure one of…
Funding and ownership pressure · Stage Silence · Head of government Javier Milei · 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
Russia: a Moscow court suspends Novaya Gazeta's print license
A Moscow court suspended the print license of Novaya Gazeta, whose editor Dmitry Muratov shared the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, after the media regulator Roskomnadzor said the paper had not provided documents about a 2006 change of ownership.
Licensing and closure of outlets · Stage Silence · Head of government Vladimir Putin · Sustained
Russia: regulator blocks BBC Russian, Deutsche Welle and other outlets
Russia's media regulator Roskomnadzor blocked access nationwide to the websites of BBC Russian, Deutsche Welle, Meduza, Voice of America's Russian service and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty within days of invading Ukraine, alongside new p…
Shutdowns and blocking · Stage Silence · Head of government Vladimir Putin · 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
Belarus blocks Tut.by and arrests its editors as 'extremist'
Belarusian authorities blocked access to Tut.by, the country's most-read independent news site, searched its offices in three cities and arrested at least eleven staff, including its editor-in-chief, citing alleged media-law violations aft…
Shutdowns and blocking · Stage Silence · Head of government Alexander Lukashenko · Sustained
Poland: state oil company Orlen buys the Polska Press newspaper group
Poland's state-controlled oil company PKN Orlen completed the purchase of Polska Press, a group of 20 regional newspapers reaching millions of readers, from its German owner, over objections from Poland's human rights commissioner.
Funding and ownership pressure · Stage Silence · Head of government Mateusz Morawiecki · 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
Hungary: formation of the KESMA pro-government media foundation
Owners aligned with Hungary's governing party donated 476 outlets into one non-profit foundation, KESMA. The government exempted the merger from the antitrust review that would normally apply to a combination of that size.
Funding and ownership pressure · Stage Silence · Head of government Viktor Orban · Sustained
Türkiye: Dogan Holding sells its media outlets to Demiroren
Türkiye's largest independent media group, including the newspaper Hurriyet and the broadcaster CNN Turk, was sold to the Demiroren conglomerate, a buyer with ties to the governing party, for a reported 1.1 billion dollars.
Funding and ownership pressure · Stage Silence · Head of government Recep Tayyip Erdoğan · 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
Türkiye: court installs trustees at Zaman newspaper
An Istanbul court put Türkiye's best-selling newspaper, Zaman, and its parent company under trustees after ruling it supported a group the government called a terrorist organization. Police used tear gas on a crowd that gathered in support.
Funding and ownership pressure · Stage Silence · Head of government Recep Tayyip Erdoğan · Sustained
Venezuela: the government declines to renew RCTV's broadcast concession
Venezuela's government let Radio Caracas Television's twenty-year broadcast concession expire rather than renew it, replacing the country's most-watched channel with a new state broadcaster; a regional human rights court later found the de…
Licensing and closure of outlets · Stage Silence · Head of government Hugo Chavez · Sustained
State-controlled Gazprom takes formal control of Russia's independent NTV television network
Gazprom, Russia's state-controlled gas company, used debts owed by NTV's parent company to take control of the country's last major independent television network at a shareholders' meeting, replacing its owner and top editors with its own…
Funding and ownership pressure · Stage Silence · Head of government Vladimir Putin · Sustained
Malaysia: Printing Presses and Publications Act amended to bar court review of publishing permits, 1987
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. The change came the…
Licensing and closure of outlets · Stage Silence · Head of government Mahathir Mohamad · Sustained
South Africa bans The World and Weekend World newspapers and detains editor Percy Qoboza
On October 19, 1977, a day South Africans came to call Black Wednesday, the government banned the newspapers The World and Weekend World and had the Special Branch police arrest editor Percy Qoboza and deputy editor Aggrey Klaaste. Qoboza…
Licensing and closure of outlets · Stage Silence · Head of government Balthazar Johannes Vorster · Sustained
Chile's military government shuts opposition radio stations and newspapers after the 1973 coup
On the day of the September 11, 1973 military coup that overthrew President Salvador Allende, Chile's armed forces bombed and shut down radio stations that opposed the takeover, arrested journalists and closed newspapers aligned with the o…
Shutdowns and blocking · Stage Silence · Head of government Augusto Pinochet · Sustained
Argentina: President Juan Perón's government hands the expropriated newspaper La Prensa to the CGT labor federation, October 1951
La Prensa, one of Argentina's leading newspapers and a longtime critic of President Juan Perón's government, was expropriated by the state earlier in 1951. In October 1951, the government formally handed the paper to the Confederación Gene…
Licensing and closure of outlets · Stage Silence · Head of government Juan Perón · Sustained
Greece: collaborationist government creates a Directorate-General for Press and Radio to review films and publications before release
The collaborationist government installed in occupied Greece created a Directorate-General for Press and Radio to take over and expand the prior review powers of the prewar Metaxas dictatorship, requiring official permission before films,…
Prior restraint · Stage Silence · Head of government Georgios Tsolakoglou · Sustained
Canada: War Measures Act regulations authorize review of hundreds of newspapers and ban political organizations
Canada invoked the War Measures Act at the outset of the Second World War and used it to bring in the Defence of Canada Regulations, which gave the government power to review and restrict hundreds of newspapers and periodicals and to ban d…
Prior restraint · Stage Silence · Head of government William Lyon Mackenzie King · Sustained
Japan: government requires clearance to publish war news under the Newspaper Law, 1937
After Japan's war with China escalated into full scale conflict in July 1937, the government invoked Article 27 of the Newspaper Law to require government clearance before publishing war related news, while a Home Ministry directive to loc…
Prior restraint · Stage Silence · Head of government Fumimaro Konoe · Sustained
Germany: Reichstag Fire Decree suspends freedom of the press, February 1933
Weeks after Adolf Hitler became German chancellor, the government used a fire that heavily damaged the Reichstag building to obtain President Paul von Hindenburg's approval for a decree suspending the constitutional guarantee of freedom of…
Licensing and closure of outlets · Stage Silence · Head of government Adolf Hitler · Sustained
Dutch East Indies: Colonial authorities end publication of the communist newspaper Mawa under Penal Code Article 153 bis, 1926
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 crimin…
Licensing and closure of outlets · Stage Silence · Head of government Andries Cornelis Dirk de Graeff · Sustained
Britain's Official Press Bureau controls newspaper coverage of the First World War
Weeks after Britain entered the First World War, Prime Minister Herbert Asquith told the House of Commons that the Official Press Bureau was the sole channel through which the Admiralty, the War Office and other departments released naval…
Prior restraint · Stage Silence · Head of government Herbert Henry Asquith · Sustained
Ottoman Empire bars lawmakers and officials from editing newspapers and jails a leading editor
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. The revision foll…
Licensing and closure of outlets · Stage Silence · Head of government Mehmed V · Sustained