Reporters Without Borders, in its 2026 annual report, has named Hebtullah Akhundzada, leader of the Taliban administration, alongside former US President Donald Trump, among 33 individuals and entities that limit media freedom through political, security, judicial, and economic pressures.<\/p>\n
Published on November 2, coinciding with the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists, the report examines the actions of various government groups, institutions, criminal organizations, and technology companies across five sectors.<\/p>\n
In the political category, the list includes eight leaders such as Akhundzada, Trump, Vladimir Putin, Ilham Aliyev, and Alexander Lukashenko, whose policies are believed by the organization to exert pressure on the media. Reporters Without Borders has strongly criticized the Taliban administration\u2019s media restrictions in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
In the security category, the Israeli armed forces and Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s government were highlighted for their treatment of journalists in critical areas like Gaza and the West Bank. Criminal groups and governments from countries including China, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt have also been accused of applying security-related pressures on journalists.<\/p>\n
Additionally, China was noted for having the highest number of imprisoned journalists worldwide, and Mexican criminal organizations were spotlighted for repeated journalist killings.<\/p>\n
In the judicial sector, figures and institutions such as Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan and Roskomnadzor were accused of using legal systems to suppress independent media.<\/p>\n
The economic section pointed to major technology firms like Alphabet and Meta, along with several business leaders and political figures, for leveraging economic tools to restrict media activities.<\/p>\n
The social category focused on individuals such as Elon Musk and Margarita Simonyan, who undermine public trust by attacking the credibility of media outlets. For instance, Argentine President Javier Milei has released thousands of anti-media messages in a short period.<\/p>\n
Reporters Without Borders Director-General, Christophe Deloire, emphasized that the use of violence, judicial and economic pressures, and disinformation seriously disrupts the activities of independent media and the public\u2019s free access to information.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Reporters Without Borders names Taliban leader Hebtullah Akhundzada and Donald Trump among 33 top figures restricting media freedom globally in 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25255,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,6,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-important-news","category-international","category-secondary-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}