Tag
Violations of freedom of the press, including restrictions on media access, retaliation against journalists, suppression of reporting, and government interference with editorial independence.
6 incidents
Trump's threat to jail journalists for reporting on a military rescue mission during the Iran war extends the administration's documented pattern of using national security claims to suppress press freedom and criminalize journalism.
The shootdown of a US F-15E over Iran and the massive rescue operation that followed document the intensity and cost of the 2026 Iran war. The rescue itself was a legitimate military operation, but Trump's threat to jail journalists who covered it raises serious press freedom concerns, and the scale of the operation — including abandoned US aircraft inside Iran — illustrates the escalatory trajectory of the conflict.
The US secretly deported 17 people from 9 African countries to Cameroon under a covert agreement. Deportees were immediately beaten by gendarmes, arbitrarily detained, and subjected to torture. Journalists attempting to document conditions were detained. HRW documented systematic abuses including enforced disappearances and rape.
A campaign of government coercion against media through broadcast license threats from the president and FCC chair, forced cancellation of a television show, pressure to remove apps, and demands that platforms suppress immigration-related content.
A systematic pattern of press freedom violations including the arrest of journalists covering immigration enforcement, the deportation of a journalist to the country he fled due to death threats, and the detention of reporters in foreign countries covering US deportation operations.
A coordinated attack on US government-funded international broadcasting placed 1,300 journalists on leave, terminated Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's grant, and attempted to gut Voice of America — until a federal judge ruled the actions illegal and ordered staff reinstated.