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According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) prison census, there were 320 journalists imprisoned as of December 2023.1 The Thomson Reuters Foundation report Weaponizing the Law: Attacks on Media Freedom defines eight broad categories of legal threats to journalists across the globe.2 One of these categories comprises allegations of financial crimes, which include tax evasion, money laundering, extortion, blackmail, terrorism financing, fraud, embezzlement and illegally receiving foreign funds.
This report reviews eight recent cases of media outlets and journalists in different countries that have been subjects of allegations of economic charges to illustrate the extent to which these laws are used as an effective and worrying strategy to silence independent voices and its consequences for the media freedom landscape. In all these cases we observe a dual strategy to attack both the financial viability of the news outlet and the reputation of the journalist or team of journalists.
This report highlights how effective the misuse of financial crimes allegations is in silencing journalists and media outlets; how this is part of a shared playbook used by autocrats and enemies to press freedom; and how urgent it is to come up with strategies to push back against this phenomenon.
The review is based on extensive research on the misuse of economic charges worldwide, as well as interviews with journalists and lawyers involved in the cases.
The main trends identified through the review are the following:
- The threat of imprisonment that those economic charges pose has a strong chilling effect in the media community in the country and worldwide.
- As financial charges correspond to criminal law, many prosecutions result in lengthy pre-trial detention, prison terms and hefty fines. Consequences also include exile of staff, financial loss/ruin and closure of the media outlet’s operations.
- During the criminal investigation and trial, journalists and media operations can be denied access to bank accounts and have their assets frozen, hampering their finances.
- Legal defence against such charges is very costly and requires access to tax and criminal lawyers, accounting experts, and other legal expertise to which journalists and media outlets do not have easy access. Often, media organisations and journalists are reliant on the good will and/or commitment to freedoms by the law and accountancy firms working with them, but lawyers defending such cases are increasingly attacked.
- The narrative behind such charges intends to label journalists as criminals, erode public support, and attack the journalist’s or media outlet’s reputation.