Speech control
The Burmese authorities are employing new tactics in their control of information, reports Nem Davies
What the US closure of global media means for freedom of speech in Asia
This article first appeared in Volume 54, Issue 2 of our print edition of Index on Censorship, titled Land of the Free?: Trump’s war on speech at home and abroad, published on 21 July 2025. Read more about the issue here.
Kyaw Min Htun, a Burmese editor and reporter, moved from his home in Myanmar to the USA more than 20 years ago, seeking a place where he could finally report freely. For two decades, the USA provided that, allowing him to secure various roles at Radio Free Asia (RFA), which is based in Washington DC. On 15 March, however, that all changed.
Alongside about 75% of his US-based colleagues, Htun was told not to go into work. His job was one of thousands of casualties of president Donald Trump’s sweeping cuts to government-backed initiatives.
“Our hands are tied and we cannot do our jobs,” Htun, who was deputy director of RFA when he was furloughed, told Index.
At the beginning of May, RFA announced it would be terminating the contracts of more than 90% of its US-based staff and shutting down several language services. Days later, this move was delayed due to an administrative stay from the courts.
On 14 March, Trump had signed an executive order to stop federal funding to the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which oversees US-funded international media. It came amid a broader assessment by the State Department of all overseas spending that has so far led to the termination of the country’s support for more than 80% of the global aid projects it had backed.
USAGM financially supports RFA and other media platforms including Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Office of Cuba Broadcasting and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks. Its aim – since its inception with VOA in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda as a form of soft power – has always been “to inform, engage and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy”. Collectively, USAGM outlets have created news in 64 languages, reaching 427 million people each week.
In many countries, such outlets are a lifeline, offering a window into what’s happening at home and abroad amid wars and famines, disasters and conflicts.
RFA – which was broadcasting in nine languages in China, Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and North Korea – has been a fixture in Asia’s media landscape since 1996, when it was established to counter propaganda. It has won awards for covering under-reported issues, including the plight of North Korean escapees, the impact of the civil war in Myanmar and the treatment of the Uyghurs.
The Trump administration, however, sees VOA and RFA as “radical propaganda”, and what it calls “anti-Trump content”.
Elon Musk – the tech billionaire and, at the time, a senior adviser to the president – said on his social media platform X that RFA and RFE were made up of “radical left crazy people talking to themselves while torching $1billion [a] year of US taxpayer money”.
While support for some outlets could resume amid several lawsuits that have been lodged against USAGM and the government, many are worried about the ramifications already being felt by journalists, citizens and democracy as a whole in Asia.
The fallout
Aleksandra Bielakowska, director of advocacy and assistance at Reporters Without Borders (RSF), told Index that many of RFA’s regional reporters were journalists working in exile or underground in places such as Cambodia or Myanmar.
Journalists including Mech Dara, who exposed trafficking and scam compounds in Cambodia, and Sai Zaw Thaike, who reported on the mistreatment of inmates inside Myanmar prisons, are being persecuted by their governments. These journalists operate clandestinely to ensure stories from their countries are told, free from state influence.
The funding cut meant RFA had to sever the contracts of most of its local freelancers, exposing them in a region where press freedom is rapidly in decline. Myanmar, China, North Korea and Vietnam are among the top 10 worst countries for journalist safety. Last year, 20 journalists were killed in Asia (up from 12 in 2023) and 30% of global arrests of journalists took place on the continent.
Several efforts are being made to curtail media freedoms in countries across Southeast Asia in particular, said Bryony Lau, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
Vietnam is one of the world’s worst jailers of journalists; in Tibet, the Chinese government forbids foreign media from entering; and in Hong Kong, since the adoption of Beijing’s National Security Law in 2020, many outlets have been forced to close and their journalists arrested on national security charges.
Bielakowska said there was currently little protection available for journalists in the region, and the situation could get worse when “authoritarian regimes […] don’t see any opposition from democratic countries”.
Certain authoritarian leaders celebrated the USA’s abandonment of such publications, said Lau. Cambodia’s leader Hun Sen praised Trump on Facebook for combating “fake news”, while Global Times, part of China’s state media, lauded the cuts, claiming “almost every malicious falsehood about China has VOA’s fingerprints all over it”.
“This just tells you actually how impactful that reporting really was,” Lau said, adding that the US cuts had made the work of restricting media freedoms by these governments much easier.
“Press freedom is definitely on the retreat, and what comes in its place is never anything great,” said Rohit Mahajan, chief communications officer at RFA.
A lack of safety globally
Back in the USA, reporters’ jobs are at risk. RFA has put the majority of its staff in its headquarters on leave and VOA has had to furlough 1,300 staff, the majority of whom are journalists.
Washington-based Htun, although among those affected, considers himself lucky. With US citizenship – he sought political asylum in 2005 – he can remain in the country, but many of RFA’s team come from Asia and their US visas are reliant on their work status. For some, the prospect of returning home – potentially to a country such as Cambodia or China where they may have helped to highlight human rights abuses – is a dangerous one.
“With the current administration’s policies, it is very hard to say they are safe even if they apply for asylum here, because they could be denied any time and they could be deported,” said Htun. “This is an unprecedented, man-made disaster.”
Aside from the threat of deportation, the furloughed staff are now not earning and are scrambling to find work. They are among thousands in the capital who have lost their jobs since the wave of executive orders, which have seen other government departments closed or drastically reduced in size.
This means that competition for jobs is fierce, said Htun. The USAGM Employee Association is collating donations to support journalists affected.
Information black holes
Aside from the impact on the safety of journalists, the shuttering of these media platforms, or even just a reduction in their content, impacts the public, limiting information.
It creates a “black hole of information”, said Bielakowska, who added that this would certainly be the case in countries such as Laos and Tibet, which are more closed. In countries with strict authoritarian regimes, VOA and RFA are often the only accessible forms of information other than state-sponsored or heavily-censored media.
This will lead to “a dramatic turning off of a pipeline of accurate and independent news stories about what is happening within authoritarian states”, said Joshua Kurlantzick, senior fellow for Southeast Asia and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations. “There isn’t as good a source in Lao, Khmer, Vietnamese, Tibetan as RFA. People will lose touch with the real world.”
Many in Myanmar – where a civil war has raged since 2021 and the military has shut down internet access in parts of the country – rely on shortwave radio for information on the war and wider events, such as the destructive earthquake in March. While the BBC and VOA are available, only a portion of their content focuses on Myanmar whereas 100% of RFA Burma’s content is focused on the country, said Htun. He explained that a content vacuum gave the Myanmar military junta an opportunity to exploit the situation by sharing their own propaganda and misinformation.
Samady Ou, an American-Cambodian activist and youth ambassador for Khmer Movement for Democracy, cannot go home to Cambodia because his democracy work has put a target on his back. He said that there was no reliable media outlet in the country without VOA and RFA.
“Right now, in Cambodia, we don’t have any news medium left that is independent and not pro-government,” he said. “When there’s unjust goings on like land grabs or Chinese big companies coming in taking away land, [Cambodians] have no voice at all.”
US pro-democracy organisation Freedom House ranks Cambodia as “not free” as a result of a “severely repressive environment” driven by the Cambodian People’s Party which “has maintained pressure on the opposition, independent press outlets and demonstrators with intimidation, politically motivated prosecutions and violence”.
Looking ahead
Experts hope the funding cut is only temporary and the USA will see the value in supporting regional media.
Historically, USAGM has always enjoyed strong bipartisan support from Congress across every administration, explained Mahajan, calling these platforms “unique tools in America’s soft power”.
Most USAID funding in Asia has been directed towards peace and security projects, indicating that this has historically been a vested interest for the USA.
“I think there’s a consensus inside of the Congress, even right now, that China and authoritarian regimes are one of the biggest challenges of the USA, and without the right information, freedom of the press and access to reliable information, we’ll have no updates about these countries, and these countries will also manage to spread their model of information inside of Asia, which is a direct threat to the USA itself,” said Bielakowska. Whether the new administration can be convinced of this is yet to be seen.
In the meantime, RFA has filed a lawsuit, claiming the government is unlawfully withholding funds and that only Congress can fund or defund an organisation it has created.
“We are trying to keep RFA afloat as we pursue a legal challenge to the termination of our grant, which we believe is unlawful,” Mahajan said. RFE and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks have also filed lawsuits.
In April, the US District Court for the District of Columbia granted an injunction to restore funding to USAGM, but the government is yet to release the funds. Htun predicts that the legal process will wage on for months to come, potentially escalating to the Supreme Court.
“This drama could take longer than expected – probably two or three more months,” he said.
During that time, journalists will remain out of work and exposed while citizens across Asia will be far less informed.
But there is always a chance that other funders could be found for these media platforms.
“Other states and entities and private organisations could fill some of the gaps in funding for media outlets,” said Kurlantzick, who called on powerful countries in the region to stand up for media freedom by committing more funds.
Lau said it was in the interests of other concerned governments to have access to reliable information, as well as to the private sector operating in some of these countries.
Such is the public support for these media sources that Ou believes the public in Asian countries may also crowdfund to keep them functioning.
In the meantime, Bielakowska is confident that RFA and VOA are used to operating in fragile situations.
“Even with this blow, I still hope that they can continue working on the ground and find ways to support themselves.”
Just Stop Oil climate protests feel the chill
This article first appeared in Volume 54, Issue 2 of our print edition of Index on Censorship, titled Land of the Free?: Trump’s war on speech at home and abroad, published on 21 July 2025. Read more about the issue here.
Ella Ward sat in jail in the UK for 10 months, waiting to be sentenced for planning to disrupt Manchester Airport in August 2024. When the sentence was handed down this May, it was 18 months in prison for Ward, with other protesters receiving up to 30 months.
Ward and their fellow activists from climate change direct action group Just Stop Oil never reached the runway, where they intended to glue themselves as part of a co-ordinated European action. Instead, according to an account from Ward, police arrested the activists on a side street in Manchester just after 4am on 5 August for planning the protest, which would have caused “severe delays”.
Four JSO activists were charged with conspiracy to cause a public nuisance and found guilty in February.
Ward, 22, a former environmental science student at the University of Leeds, is a serial activist. They have slow-marched down roads for JSO (for which they spent time in prison before charges were dropped) and thrown paint over think tank Policy Exchange, and they were one of three young people – under the banner of Youth Demand (an offshoot of JSO) – who left children’s shoes outside the home of Keir Starmer, then leader of the opposition, to protest against the killings in Gaza.
None of these actions have been violent, although many have caused offence and disruption. But the fact that Ward and others have been sentenced to prison for months demonstrates how the UK has been clamping down on protest when it would once have dealt with such direct actions with fines.
JSO, whose activists threw soup over Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers at the National Gallery, announced earlier this year that it was stopping its activities.
The official reason given was that its demands – for no new oil and gas licences to be issued – had been met. But at the group’s final demonstration through London in April, it was clear that the imprisonment of key activists was a major concern: there were as many protesters holding up pictures of activists who had been jailed as there were messages about climate change and the fossil fuel industry.
Ths shift in protest policing
Mel Carrington, 63, is a JSO spokesperson who was acquitted in June after blocking the departure gates at Gatwick Airport with suitcases last year. She told Index: “We have to respond to repression, and all our most radical people are in prison. So it does have an impact.”
There are currently 11 JSO protesters behind bars. Co-founder Roger Hallam (also co-founder of Extinction Rebellion, or XR) is serving a four-year sentence (reduced from five years) for conspiracy to cause a public nuisance. His crime was playing a major role in a Zoom meeting where he was found to have conspired in a “sophisticated plan” for activists to climb gantries over the M25 – a motorway which circles London – and disrupt traffic. Hallam did not participate in the action, which took place in November 2022, but the law enabled him to be imprisoned for the protest nonetheless.
Locking up climate protesters is relatively new in the UK. Richard Ecclestone, an XR spokesperson and a former police inspector, said the attitude of the police, as well as actual laws, had changed dramatically over the last six years, which he found “very disturbing”. Police used to facilitate protest, now they are shutting it down.
“We don’t want to be like Russia, China or North Korea. That’s not who we are,” he told Index.
Recent anti-protest legislation has given police the power to stop almost any action they don’t like and granted the courts expanded powers to imprison protesters, although the Court of Appeal decided in May that the idea of “disruption” – which led to Swedish climate protester Greta Thunberg being arrested in London – had been drawn too widely and that “serious disruption” could not be categorised as anything “more than minor”.
The 2022 Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act has proved particularly effective at shutting down civil disobedience, while protest-related offences under the Public Order Act 2023 were introduced in direct response to environmental activism. Serious Disruption Prevention Orders introduced in 2024 also mean the courts can prevent people from taking part in disruptive protests after they’ve been convicted of protest-related offences, and breaching the order would be a criminal offence.
Mothers supporting daughters
The Labour government, elected last year, is seeking to give police even more powers to control demonstrations. Amnesty International has highlighted provisions in the new Crime and Policing Bill currently going through parliament which seek to ban face masks and criminalise climbing on war memorials.
The courts have also blocked the right for defendants to use beliefs and motivation as a lawful excuse for causing a nuisance, damage or disruption in most cases.
Ward’s mother (who didn’t want her name to be published) was on the march, as was Rebecca, the mother of Ruby Hamill, another protester who, at the age of 19, was held in prison for slow-marching. Ruby has now been released. Both mothers went on the final JSO march in support of their daughters.
Ward’s mother told Index: “My daughter is very passionate and compassionate and feels deeply about the injustice of the climate crisis and how it’s affecting the global south, and wants to let people know as much as possible. She’s done the most she possibly can do by putting her liberty on the line. She knew the potential outcome.
“She told the jury in the trial she would be at peace with whether she is found guilty or not guilty … the point of her action is to get the message out there. I’m here in solidarity with my daughter and all the other people who have been imprisoned.
“It’s a very conflicting place for a parent – so worried about them being in prison but conversely proud of them for standing up for their beliefs.”
The UK’s deteriorating record
The UK has a poor record when it comes to arresting climate protesters who, like JSO members, have been non-violent and allow themselves to be arrested.
A recent report from the University of Bristol, called the Criminalisation and Repression of Climate and Environmental Protests, looked at government responses across a range of countries.
The report found that 17% of climate and environmental protests in the UK involved arrest, making it the second most likely country (after Australia at 20%) to take environmental protesters into police custody.
It is not the only country to have clamped down heavily on climate protest. France has reached for anti-terror laws, and Spain, Germany and the USA have used legislation designed to tackle organised crime.
Separately, climate activists in the UK have often been subject to civil proceedings such as injunctions which prevent named (and sometimes unnamed) individuals from going near certain places. Carrington says these injunctions can be as intimidating as criminalisation, making people afraid they could lose their savings or their jobs.
In 2022, JSO protester Louise Lancaster was ordered to pay £22,000 for breaching an injunction preventing her going on the M25.
Carrington herself found that she couldn’t renew her house insurance because of proceedings against her. She also claimed teachers had discovered their jobs were at risk because criminal prosecutions for climate change action turned up in Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks.
Another way forward?
All of this risks environmental protesters going underground and carrying out actions with less accountability. There are already organisations such as The Tyre Extinguishers whose members deliberately let down the tyres of SUVs and then scarper, or Shut The System, which sabotages infrastructure.
But the authors of the Bristol report recommended another way forward.
“Governments, legislatures, courts and police forces should operate with a general presumption against criminalising climate and environmental protests,” it said. “Instead, climate and environmental protest should be regarded as a reasonable response to the urgent and existential nature of the climate crisis, and activists engaged as stakeholders in a process of just transition.”
The leaders of climate change movements agree and are working out how to pivot to a less disruptive street-based approach and one which might garner more public support. Ecclestone says XR was interested in using citizens’ assemblies to achieve change and that a lot of work was going on to see how that could be made to work.
Carrington said JSO had a project as part of the umbrella group Assemble which aimed to build on the idea that politics was broken and corrupt, and that building a political project from the grassroots up was the way to achieve change.
She said: “What we need to do more than ever is to come together and to work together to survive the storm that’s coming.”
The week in free expression: 14-20 June 2025
In the age of online information, it can feel harder than ever to stay informed. As we get bombarded with news from all angles, important stories can easily pass us by. To help you cut through the noise, every Friday Index publishes a weekly news roundup of some of the key stories covering censorship and free expression. This week, we look at how Israel has targeted Iranian media in bombing strikes, and the state execution of a Saudi journalist.
Bombed live on broadcast: Israel strikes Iranian state media
In the early hours of Friday 13 June, Israel launched strikes against Iran which has since escalated into a larger conflict, with major population centres such as Tehran and Tel Aviv facing missile attacks. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claims the initial attack, dubbed Operation Rising Lion, was pre-emptive to prevent Iran from producing a nuclear weapon which Israel believed was imminent – a claim that is not backed up by US intelligence. Beyond nuclear targets, Israeli missiles have targeted another facet of the Iranian state: the media.
On 16 June, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting’s (IRIB) TV channel was broadcasting live news coverage of the conflict when an explosion rocked the studio, forcing the presenter to flee and the broadcast to cut to pre-recorded bulletins. Israel had bombed the studio live on air in a direct attack on Iranian media. Israeli defence minister Israel Katz described the attack as a strike on the “propaganda and incitement broadcasting authority of the Iranian regime“, while an Israeli military spokesperson alleged that IRIB was aiding the Iranian military “under the cover of civilian assets and infrastructure“. Iranian officials described the attack as a war crime, while the head of IRIB Peyman Jebelli stated that the studio was damaged, but vowed that broadcasting would return. Local media reported that three members of staff were killed in the attack, including a senior news editor.
“High treason” or Twitter?: Saudi journalist executed after social media posts
On 14 June 2025, the Saudi Interior Ministry announced on X that it had carried out the death penalty on Saudi journalist Turki al-Jasser, who stood accused of high treason and terrorism charges, in the first high-profile killing of a Saudi journalist since Jamal Khashoggi. But campaigners close to the case believe that the true reason for al-Jasser’s arrest and execution in 2018 was his posts made on X (then called Twitter).
Al-Jasser reportedly had two accounts: one under his real name, and a second, anonymous account that was critical of the Saudi government, accusing the Saudi royal family of corruption. The Saudi government is thought to have identified al-Jasser as someone involved with attempting to topple the government because of his posts; Saudi Arabia allegedly infiltrated Twitter’s databases to access information about anonymous users in 2014 and 2015, and could have identified Al-Jasser using a similar method. It has been reported that Al-Jasser, who founded the news website Al-Mashhad Al-Saudi (The Saudi Scene), was tortured during his seven-year detention.
Changing views: Reforms to freedom of expression on UK campuses
The university campus is often considered a battleground for free speech, with conflicting ideals constantly in debate and student protests making national news. Universities are often caught between supporting staff or students, and are frequently criticised for giving or denying controversial speakers a platform.
Following some high-profile incidents, universities have asked for clarity. Kathleen Stock, a philosophy professor at the University of Sussex, resigned in 2021 following protests on campus regarding her gender-critical views, for example. The Office for Students (OfS) fined the university £585,000 for the poor handling of her case and failing to uphold free speech.
A set of new OfS guidelines are intended to provide clear advice on what is permitted and what is not. In the guidelines, the OfS has ruled that universities in England will no longer be able to enforce blanket bans on student protests. This follows a wave of pro-Palestine student protests, with encampments appearing on university grounds across the country. Some universities have looked to prohibit such demonstrations, as Cambridge University did when a court ruled to block any further Israel-Palestine protests until the end of July.
The OfS guidelines also address the protection of viewpoints by staff and students that some may find offensive. Arif Ahmed, director for freedom of speech and academic freedom at OfS, stated that students “have to accept that other people will have views that you find uncomfortable” when attending university. The guidelines come into effect in UK universities on 1 August.
No more soap operas: Cambodia bans Thai TV in border dispute
Since a clash at a disputed border area between Cambodia and Thailand claimed the life of a Cambodian soldier on 28 May, the two southeast Asian nations have seen tensions escalate. Each side blamed the other for the skirmish, which has resulted in an increased armed presence at the border and the introduction of retaliatory measures by both governments. With neither side looking to back down, the Cambodian government has taken a further step to sever ties with its neighbour by banning Thai TV and movies from being shown in Cambodia.
The ban also includes a boycott of any Thai internet links; a move that Cambodia’s minister of post and telecommunication Chea Vandeth claimed would cost Thailand hundreds of millions of dollars. Every cinema in the country has been informed that import and screening of Thai films is strictly prohibited as of 13 June, and Thai TV broadcasts – such as Thai soap operas, which are especially popular in Cambodia – must be replaced with Chinese, Korean or Cambodian dramas. Tensions continue to rise, and Cambodia instituted a ban on Thai fruit imports on Tuesday.
Citizen journalism under fire: Government of Jammu and Kashmir has YouTubers and online content creators in their sights
The government of Jammu and Kashmir has issued an order targeting those it deems to be “impersonating journalists”, including content creators on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. The order restricts speech vaguely defined as “provocative” or “false” content, and content creators reporting on political affairs in the region could be classified as “impersonating a journalist”. The order comes with significant legal threats such as fines, imprisonment and the confiscation of electronic devices, allowing for anyone deemed to be “disrupting public order” to face consequences.
Threats to free speech in Jammu and Kashmir have been prevalent since a deadly terrorist attack in Indian-controlled Kashmir in April claimed 26 lives. Journalist Rakesh Sharma was physically assaulted while covering a protest in Jammu and Kashmir, and following the terrorist attack, the Indian government implemented widespread digital censorship on Pakistani and Muslim content on social media. With the new order, it will be even harder for residents of Jammu and Kashmir to stay informed.