From the early hours of Friday 6 June, the Nigerian army began halting the distribution of major national newspapers in what it claimed was part of a security operation. Newspapers including the Leadership, Daily Trust, The Nation and The Punch said their distribution vans were either stopped or seized in several cities across the country. As the clampdown continued through 10 June, the Director of Defence Information, Major General Chris Olukolade, defended the operation until “satisfied” with security checks on the country’s newspaper distribution networks.

With a number of high-profile recent challenges to press freedom from within leading democracies, are those states habitually praised for setting an example now guilty of undermining respect for human rights elsewhere in the world?

A new global report on “soft censorship” warns of increasing threats to independent media posed by official use of financial leverage and regulatory powers to influence reporting and the very viability of media outlets. “Soft Censorship, Hard Impact”, produced by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) and the Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA), details the advance of soft censorship, and urgently calls on governments to fully respect principles of transparent and non-discriminatory state advertising, aid and funding for all media outlets.