MANILA, March 29 (NNN-AGENCIES) – Philippine journalist Maria Ressa was arrested Friday, her second detention in what press freedom advocates have said is retaliation for her news site’s criticism of President Rodrigo
Duterte.
Ressa and her website Rappler have been hit with a string of criminal
charges that have sent shockwaves through the Philippine media scene,
prompting allegations they are being targeted for their work.
The veteran reporter, named a Time Magazine Person of the Year in 2018, was taken into custody by authorities in Manila, said Rappler co-founder Beth Frondoso.
“They got her at the airport,” Frondoso said. “We will be filing bail.”
Bail for Ressa, who holds Philippine and American passports, is normally
automatic in this case and she was to go before a judge on Friday morning.
She was taken into custody on a charge that she allowed her name to be used to circumvent a Philippine law against foreign ownership of media properties, a charge that stems from a 2015 investment into Rappler.
Under the constitution, the media is an economic sector which is reserved
for Filipinos or Filipino-controlled entities.
Philippine authorities arrested Ressa in February on an internet libel
charge.
She spent a night in detention but eventually posted bail for
allegedly libelling a businessman in a news article written in 2012.
Rappler has reported extensively, and unflatteringly, on Duterte’s deadly
anti-drugs crackdown that has claimed thousands of lives and which rights
groups say may be a crime against humanity.
The narcotics crackdown is Duterte’s signature initiative and he fiercely
defends it against criticism.
Ressa insists the site is not anti-Duterte, saying it is just doing its job
to hold the government to account. — NNN-AGENCIES
