Search: licensing and closure of outlets, stage: silence
The number of entries reflects the depth of this record, not the severity of a country's conduct.
All filters: country, dates, head of government, sort
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
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
Hungary: Klubradio loses its terrestrial broadcast license over its tender application
Hungary's Media Council ended Klubradio's decades-old terrestrial broadcast license, citing errors in its renewal application, after the station had built a following as one of the country's few remaining independent voices.
Licensing and closure of outlets · Stage Silence · Head of government Viktor Orban · Upheld by a court
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
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
Zimbabwe: police close the Daily News under the media registration law
Zimbabwe's Supreme Court ruled the Daily News, the country's largest independent newspaper, was operating unregistered under a 2002 media law, and police shut its offices the next day; the paper stayed closed for nearly seven years.
Licensing and closure of outlets · Stage Silence · Head of government Robert Mugabe · Reversed
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
United Kingdom bars broadcasters from airing Sinn Féin members' own voices
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. Broadcas…
Licensing and closure of outlets · Stage Silence · Head of government Margaret Thatcher · Reversed
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
Egypt's Nasser government nationalizes every newspaper and magazine in the country
President Gamal Abdel Nasser's government issued a decree on May 24, 1960 placing every newspaper and magazine in Egypt under state ownership and management, with the government appointing editors and deciding content, ending private contr…
Funding and ownership pressure · Stage Silence · Head of government Gamal Abdel Nasser · Ongoing
South Africa's Suppression of Communism Act lets the government ban publications and restrict individuals
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. It let the government ban organizations and p…
Prior restraint · Stage Silence · Head of government Daniel François Malan · Reversed
Brazil's Vargas government creates a state messaging department with broad press powers
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. The department operated…
Licensing and closure of outlets · Stage Silence · Head of government Getúlio Vargas · Reversed
Nazi Germany's Editors Law bars Jewish journalists from the press and puts editors under state direction
Nine months after Adolf Hitler became chancellor, Germany's Schriftleitergesetz, or Editors Law, required journalists to register with a new state-controlled Reich Press Chamber and barred non-Aryans from the profession, while directing ed…
Credential control · Stage Silence · Head of government Adolf Hitler · Reversed
Soviet Russia creates Glavlit, a central office to review all printed material before publication
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. By 1930 no publication in the So…
Prior restraint · Stage Silence · Head of government Vladimir Lenin · Ongoing