(credit: icfj.org) Filipino investigative reporter Maria Ressa
By Gary Raynaldo DIPLOMATIC TIMES
UNITED NATIONS – NEW YORK – Filipino investigative journalist Maria Ressa has been arrested, faced death threats, and constantly harassed by the government of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte for her courageous reporting on the country’s brutal ‘war on drugs’. Ressa , a veteran journalist and an outspoken critic of President Duterte, has been arrested three times, accused of ‘cyber libel’, violating security laws and corporate tax evasion, She has also received numerous online threats of rape. But Ressa will not be silenced and keeps writing to expose President Duterte’s murderous ‘war on drugs’ human rights organizations claim has killed more than 7,000 people between July 2016 and January 2017.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on Tuesday named Ressa as the recipient of its 2021 press freedom award. Ressa, founder and executive editor of Rappler, is a crusading editor and digital trailblazer in the Philippines. In addition to being threatened with rape and murder, she’s been the subject of hashtag campaigns like #ArrestMariaRessa and #BringHerToTheSenate, designed to whip up online mobs into attack mode, discredit both Ressa and Rappler, and silence their reporting. Ressa was chosen for the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize following the recommendation of an international jury of media professionals.
“Maria Ressa’s unerring fight for freedom of expression is an example for many journalists around the world. Her case is emblematic of global trends that represent a real threat to press freedom, and therefore to democracy”,
-Marilu Mastrogiovanni, Chair of the Prize’s international jury and an investigative journalist from Italy, said.
Extrajudicial Killings
According to the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), 4,948 suspected drug users and dealers died during police operations from July 1, 2016 to September 30, 2018. But this does not include the thousands of others killed by unidentified gunmen. According to the Philippine National Police (PNP), 22,983 such deaths since the “war on drugs” began are classified as “homicides under investigation.” – Human Rights Watch.org.
“Masked gunmen taking part in killings appeared to be working closely with police, casting doubt on government claims that most killings have been committed by vigilantes or rival drug gangs.” -HRW.org
The award ceremony will take place on 2 May in Windhoek, Namibia, during the World Press Freedom Day Global Conference. It will be streamed online. According to UNESCO, Ressa has been arrested for “alleged crimes related to the exercise of her profession”, and has been subject to a sustained campaign of gendered online abuse, threats and harassment, which at one point, resulted in her receiving an average of over 90 hateful messages an hour on Facebook.
The former lead investigative journalist for Asia at CNN and head of ABS-CBN News and Current Affairs, Ressa was also among a group of journalists named as Time Magazine’s person of the year in 2018.
