{"id":163136,"date":"2020-06-22T12:00:09","date_gmt":"2020-06-22T11:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=163136"},"modified":"2020-06-19T09:17:59","modified_gmt":"2020-06-19T08:17:59","slug":"philippines-maria-ressas-libel-conviction-is-a-blow-to-press-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/06\/philippines-maria-ressas-libel-conviction-is-a-blow-to-press-freedom\/","title":{"rendered":"Philippines: Maria Ressa\u2019s Libel Conviction Is a Blow to Press Freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Maria Ressa – Wikipedia<\/p><\/div>\n

15 Jun 2020 – <\/em>Journalist Maria Ressa,<\/u> who has long resisted efforts by Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte to throw her in jail and shut down her Manila-based news organization, was found guilty on criminal libel charges in a Filipino court today. The editor who has come to symbolize the global fight for press freedom now faces the prospect of up to six years in prison<\/a>, even as she continues to fend off other legal assaults from the Duterte regime.<\/p>\n

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The libel case is part of a broad campaign by Duterte to manipulate the country\u2019s legal system in order to persecute Ressa and her online news organization, Rappler.<\/p>\n

Ressa and Rappler have so angered Duterte with their unstinting coverage of his brutal drug war<\/a>, which has left thousands dead, that since 2017, Duterte has used one trumped-up legal charge after another to try to silence them. Ressa\u2019s efforts to fight Duterte\u2019s legal attacks while continuing to report on his government have earned her international acclaim. In 2018, she was named a Time magazine person of the year.<\/p>\n

But Monday\u2019s ruling is a major blow to Ressa\u2019s efforts to fend off Duterte\u2019s legal assaults and marks a significant setback for press freedom in the Philippines, where last month Duterte effectively shut down the country\u2019s largest broadcast television network<\/a>, ABS-CBN.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I\u2019ve followed Ressa\u2019s case closely as director of the First Look Press Freedom Defense Fund, a unit of First Look Media, The Intercept\u2019s parent company, which helped fund her legal defense. In an interview over the weekend, Ressa described the Filipino government\u2019s use of the criminal libel case against her as \u201cthe weaponization of the law.\u201d Journalists in the Philippines know they are under attack, she told me, \u201cbut this cements it and codifies it.\u201d<\/p>\n

To bring its libel case against Ressa, the Filipino government went to extraordinary lengths to manipulate the country\u2019s libel law. She and a Rappler colleague, Reynaldo Santos Jr., were charged in connection with a 2012 article about links between a businessman and a former Filipino chief justice. The case wasn\u2019t filed until 2017, five years after the story was published and just as Duterte was launching a broader legal campaign against Rappler and Ressa. She and Santos were charged under a \u201ccyber libel\u201d law that was enacted four months after the article appeared, but the Filipino Justice Department ruled that the law could be used because the online story was updated after publication when someone at Rappler fixed a typo.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is clear to any reasonable observer that criminal charges for this do not stand up,\u201d Amal Clooney, Ressa\u2019s lawyer, wrote last week<\/a>. But \u201cperhaps it should come as no surprise that the authorities would be so brazen. Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte has himself warned that journalists are spies who are not exempted from assassination.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a press conference following her conviction, Ressa said that Rappler would continue its work.<\/p>\n

\u201cI appeal to you, the journalists in this room, the Filipinos who are listening, to protect your rights,\u201d she said. \u201cWe are meant to be a cautionary tale.<\/a> We are meant to make you afraid. So I appeal again: Don\u2019t be afraid, because if you don\u2019t use your rights, you will lose them.\u201d<\/p>\n

_____________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

James Risen<\/a> – jim.risen@\u200bfirstlook.org<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go to Original – theintercept.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

15 Jun 2020 – Journalist Maria Ressa, who has long resisted efforts by Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte to throw her in jail and shut down her Manila-based news organization, was found guilty on criminal libel charges in a Filipino court today. The editor who has come to symbolize the global fight for press freedom now faces the prospect of up to six years in prison, even as she continues to fend off other legal assaults from the Duterte regime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":163137,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[378,651,234,1856],"class_list":["post-163136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media","tag-journalism","tag-justice","tag-media","tag-philippines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}