• Twenty-five years after the US-led “Global War on Terror,” policies encouraging national security overreach are increasingly circulating internationally. Repressive “foreign agent” laws, popularised by Russia, have inspired similar legislation in several countries, while China’s model of internet control, embodied by the Great Firewall, is gradually being replicated in Vietnam, Myanmar and Cambodia to strengthen censorship in the name of national security, a new report, “National Security as a Weapon Against Journalism,” by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) says
• While China boasts the most sophisticated surveillance system on the planet - and the most detained journalists - the illegal surveillance of journalists has risen in democracies. In Greece, at least 13 media professionals were targeted with Predator spyware in what became the largest surveillance scandal involving journalists in the European Union. As for Chile, investigative journalist Mauricio Weibel Barahona was targeted by an illegal surveillance operation after investigating corruption within the military
• In response to the increasing misuse of national security, RSF calls for the restoration of democratic safeguards. The NGO particularly recommends strictly limiting the definition of national security, strengthening the protection of confidential journalistic sources, placing effective limits on surveillance powers, preventing the misuse of counterterrorism legislation against journalists and reinforcing international mechanisms to protect press freedom

Archived version

The report: NATIONAL SECURITY AS A WEAPON AGAINST JOURNALISM - (pdf)

…

What do Saudi journalist Turki al-Jasser, Philippine journalist Frenchie Mae Cumpio and Chinese journalist Zhang Zhan have in common? All were prosecuted in the name of “national security” between 2020 and 2026. Al-Jasser was executed and the other two imprisoned simply for doing their jobs. They are far from isolated cases.

…

In the United States, the Department of Justice issued subpoenas compelling journalists from The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal to testify before a grand jury investigating national security leaks. On 1 July 2026, just days before the report was published, the Chinese regime brought a new law into force that dangerously expanded the range of activities considered “terrorism”. This legislation can be used to target exiled journalists, notably those from the persecuted Uyghur minority. In Hong Kong, media owner Jimmy Lai has now spent more than 2,000 days in detention on national security charges as the founder of one of the territory’s most prominent independent newspapers, Apple Daily.

…

The 2026 RSF World Press Freedom Index points to the continued overreach of national security legislation as its legal indicator deteriorated in more than 60% of countries between 2025 and 2026. The criminalisation of journalism through the circumvention of press law and the misuse of emergency or ordinary legislation is a global phenomenon.

…

The growing number of armed conflicts and the advance of authoritarianism have fueled this trend. The report highlights, in particular, how Palestinian journalists in Gaza and the occupied West Bank are being arrested, detained and deprived of their fundamental rights by the Israeli military under the pretext of fighting terrorism and national security. It also examines how the media is being silenced and pressured into disseminating “patriotic news coverage” across the Sahel region of sub-Saharan Africa. More broadly, it documents the international spread of these repressive practices, from “foreign agent” laws inspired by the Russian model to digital surveillance and censorship systems developed by China.

…

National security is one of the main pretexts for transnational repression. By arguing that they are combating “enemies of the state,” authoritarian regimes are pursuing exiled journalists via convictions in absentia, extradition requests, online harassment campaigns, threats against their families back at home and even assassination attempts. The killing of Kazakh journalist Aydos Sadykov, who was living in exile in Ukraine after being accused of threatening his country’s interests, illustrates the growing reach of transnational repression.

…

Democracies are not immune to this trend. Increasingly, legal and security precedents are eroding the safeguards that protect press freedom. Examples include the tougher penalties journalists could face for working with whistleblowers under the United Kingdom’s 2023 National Security Act, the conviction of Finnish journalist Juha Mäntylä, the surveillance scandal involving journalist Thanasis Koukakis in Greece, and the prosecution of Julian Assange under the US Espionage Act.

…

The growing number of armed conflicts and the advance of authoritarianism have fuelled this trend. The report highlights, in particular, how Palestinian journalists in Gaza and the occupied West Bank are being arrested, detained and deprived of their fundamental rights by the Israeli military under the pretext of fighting terrorism and national security. It also examines how the media is being silenced and pressured into disseminating “patriotic news coverage” across the Sahel region of sub-Saharan Africa. More broadly, it documents the international spread of these repressive practices, from “foreign agent” laws inspired by the Russian model to digital surveillance and censorship systems developed by China.

…