UNESCO Issue Brief: The Misuse of Financial Laws to Pressure, Silence and Intimidate Journalists and Media Outlets

A new UNESCO issue brief outlines a growing trend in allegations of financial wrongdoing as tools to silence journalists. Based on 120 relevant cases dated between 2005 and 2024, the brief detects a significant increase in cases between 2019 and 2023 – 60% of those reviewed. The most frequent charges are extortion, tax evasion, and money laundering; among other allegations identified are blackmail, embezzlement, and foreign funds obtained illegally. Regionally, more cases occur in Asia and the Pacific, and Eastern Europe and Central Asia. As a tactic to target journalists, the misuse of financial laws has features different from other ways of silencing critical voices: accusations of financial wrongdoing almost exclusively come from state actors; unlike defamation charges, such accusations do not require an established connection between journalists’ published work and the charge; facing the complexity of alleged financial crimes, journalists and media outlets need tax and other legal expertise, which they often do not have access to.