World Press Freedom Day 2007 Under Attack

World Press
Freedom Day 2007
Under Attack
By Hector Bryant  L. Macale and Jose Bimbo F. Santos

TO BE a journalist these days has become more difficult and dangerous.
Press freedom throughout the world is still under threat this year, with many journalists and media practitioners getting sued, threatened, abducted, arrested, attacked—and murdered—for doing their job. Journalists are working in an increasingly dangerous environment, whether it is in a conflict area like Iraq or in the Philippines where lawlessness and a culture of impunity reign.
While the year 2006 was considered as the deadliest year for journalists worldwide—over 150 journalists were killed around the world last year, according to the United Nations and various press freedom organizations—the murderous pattern against the press continues this year, with no signs of slowing down. Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the  Paris-based press freedom advocacy group, reported that media deaths rose dramatically from 25 in 2002 to 84 in 2006. RSF also counted 123 journalists and 65 cyber dissidents currently in prison.
In the Philippines, the number of journalist casualties has continued to rise: from a death toll of two in 2002, the yearly average of those killed has spiked to six since 2003.

Never been deadlier
“Being a journalist has never been more dangerous,” said Koïchiro Matsuura, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) secretary-general, in his message on May 3, World Press Freedom Day.
Even as journalists the world over celebrated press freedom on that day, Rolando López Sánchez, producer of Radio Sonora for 14 years, was gunned down in Guatemala. The Center for Informative Reports on Guatemala reported that no single item was stolen from the body of Sánchez, leading to the belief that the death was connected to his work.
In the Philippines, just a few weeks earlier, the body of Carmelo “Mark” Palacios, a police reporter from the government-run station dzRB Radyo ng Bayan, was found on April 18 in Mapalad Village, Sta. Rosa Nueva Ecija. Aside from gunshot wounds on the chin and back, Palacios’s body bore bruises, an indication that he had been tortured before he was killed. Police investigation indicated that Palacios had been unpopular with “scalawag policemen and politicians” because of his reports. Palacios was also a member of Citizen’s Crime Watch, an anti-crime group in Nueva Ecija.
Palacios was the second Filipino journalist casualty this year, after Hernani Pastolero, publisher of the community paper Lightning Courier, who was gunned down in Feb. 19 in Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao.
Danger however does not come only from the barrel of a gun. While the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility has kept track of the number of journalists killed, it would be hard to keep tabs on the number of stories killed in newsrooms for fear of earning another troublesome libel suit. What has become more worrisome for Filipino journalists  was the filing of 11 libel suits by Jose Miguel “Mike” Arroyo, the husband of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, against 46 reporter, editors, and publishers. The seriousness of the threat was such that policemen began picking up journalists while the latter were going about their jobs in their beats or in the newsroom.
In a country where libel suits have traditionally not prospered, the specter of successful libel suits became a reality when two journalists were imprisoned this year because of libel convictions. Alex Adonis, former Bombo Radyo reporter, is now behind bars in Davao after failing to defend himself in a libel suit. Bicol dzRH correspondent Jun Allegre meanwhile was thrown in jail after being convicted in a decade-old libel suit.

Libel cases withdrawn
In what appeared to be a deus ex machina in the battle between media and Mike Arroyo, the President’s husband went through life-threatening surgery.  Arroyo’s doctors strongly advised him to avoid stressful activities, including reading newspapers, that might raise his blood pressure.
On May 3, Press Freedom Day, Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye read a message from Mike Arroyo announcing that he has asked his lawyers to withdraw all the libel suits he has filed against the press.
He explained: “Both in sincere gratitude to a nation that deserves a more harmonious leadership, and as a gesture of peace to the many kind hearts who have helped my family weather this crisis, I have instructed my attorneys to withdraw all the libel suits pending before the courts.”
“Seeking redress for all the grievances that the libel suits sought to address now pales in comparison to taking on a genuine chance to make peace to pursue a more positive and constructive relationship with those who will accept my offer of a handshake,” Arroyo said.
Independent senatorial candidate Francis Pangilinan said that the withdrawal of the suits was a “victory for press freedom and should be lauded.”
Many journalists, however, did not welcome Arroyo’s move.

Unresolved issue
“Some of the journalists rued a lost opportunity for a judicial clarification of what constitutes libel and to what extent a first spouse can invoke the right to privacy,” the May 4 editorial of the Philippine Star said.
Newsbreak editor-in-chief Maritess Vitug explained, “We would like this matter to be resolved in courts on its merits. This will provide journalists with parameters on libel and what it is not.”
Amado Macasaet, Malaya publisher and Philippine Press Institute chair, was likewise not pleased with Arroyo’s withdrawal. “We wish First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo did not opt to drop the slew of libel charges he had filed against the newspapermen for stories which we believe were fair and involved issues which were of public interest,” he said.
Like Vitug, Macasaet preferred “to get a verdict based on the merits of the case and not on the mercy of the complainant, First Gentleman Mike Arroyo. I will not owe my freedom to him.”
Arroyo was  named by RSF as a “new enemy” of the Philippine press earlier this year for the barrage of libel suits he had filed that “put the liberty of scores of journalists in danger.”

A worldwide problem
Elsewhere in the world, the physical attacks against journalists continue.
CNN’s Anderson Cooper wrote in Attacks on the Press 2007, the annual publication of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), that “attacks on journalists go unsolved. Authorities either refuse to investigate, or refuse to acknowledge the possible link to the reporter’s work.”
In Burkina Faso, West Africa, a district magistrate court sentenced two journalists to serve two-month suspended prison terms each after being convicted of defaming François Compaoré, the younger brother of Burkina Faso’s president Blaise Compaoré.
In Gambia, 11 journalists were imprisoned in 2006 for suspended periods after President Yahyah Jammeh’s government enforced repressive media laws.
In a news conference last year just before the September elections which Jammeh won amid charges of widespread intimidation, he said: “Let me tell you one thing. The whole world can go to hell. If I want to ban any newspaper, I will with good reason. If you write Yahya is a thief, you should be ready to prove it in a court of law. If that constitutes lack of press freedom, I don’t care.”
“I don’t believe in killing people. I believe in locking you up for the rest of your life,” Jammeh was also quoted as saying.
Gambia’s only private newspaper, The Independent, remains closed after it was locked up on March 28, 2006 by security agents following a failed coup. On the same day, The Independent’s editor Musa Saidykhan and general manager Madi Cessay were detained by the National Intelligence Agency and were reportedly tortured. They were released on April 20, 2006.
A special report of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Backsliders, noted the 10 countries where press freedom has deteriorated the most. These include Africa’s Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ethiopia and Gambia.
“Democracy’s foothold in Africa is shallow when it comes to press freedom. These three African nations, as diverse as they are, have won praise at times for their transition to democracy—but they are actually moving in reverse on press issues. Journalists in Ethiopia, Gambia, and DRC are being jailed, attacked, and censored, a picture far worse than what we saw only a few years ago,” said CPJ executive director Joel Simon.
In Russia, CPJ research showed that 46 journalists have been murdered in the past 15 years, with 90 percent of the cases still unsolved. Anna Politkovskaya, the celebrated investigative journalist who was murdered in October last year, was the 13th journalist killed contract-style since Vladimir Putin rose to power in 2000. Politkovskaya had reportedly incurred the ire of Putin for her coverage of the Chechen war, which is underreported, if not completely ignored, by the mainstream Russian press.
Reporting on a taboo topic also caused the murder of Turkish editor Hrant Dink on Jan. 23. The genocidal campaign waged against ethnic Armenians during the last years of the Ottoman empire is a sensitive topic in Turkey but Dink’s newspaper, Agos, provided a voice for Turkey’s Armenian community and a forum between  Turks and Armenians. Dink received death threats for his unconventional views.  His death was condemned by tens of thousands of Turkish mourners.

Terror by legislation
Anti-terror legislation, which has become common worldwide as a response to US President George W. Bush’s “war on terror,” has also impaired media practice internationally, leading to heightened levels of censorship worldwide.
On Feb. 26, Sri Lankan authorities arrested Dushanta Basnayake, financial director of Standard Newspapers Private Limited (SNPL) for alleged violation of that country’s anti-terror law. Munusamy Parameshawary, of the Sinhalese language weekly Mawbima, has been detained without charges by the Terrorist Investigation Division since Nov. 22, 2006. SNPL publishes Mawbima.
The Philippines’ own anti-terror law, which President Arroyo signed on March 6, has been scored by human rights activists for its very broad definition of what constitutes terrorism. The definition of terror is so vague that even journalists who are going about their jobs, such as interviewing perceived enemies of the state, can be accused of that crime.
The new law also allows the detention of terrorism suspects for 72 hours and the seizure of their assets while their cases are still pending.

Positive developments
But there have also been positive developments in press freedom over the past year in some countries.
In Cambodia, the Council of Ministers has amended the defamation law by removing prison terms as penalty.
In Indonesia, sections of the criminal code that criminalize insulting the president and the vice-president have been declared unconstitutional by the Indonesian Constitutional court.  A legacy of the Dutch colonial regime, those sections of the criminal code had been used by the Suharto regime to silence political opponents, critics, and human rights activists.
Finally, in December last year, the United Nations Security Council adopted unanimously Resolution 1738 which condemned attacks on journalists and called on all member states to put an end to such practices.
Locally, the Philippine press had cause for celebration on Oct. 6, 2006 after the three suspects in  the murder of journalist Marlene Esperat were all convicted. Gerry Cabagay, Randy Grecia, and Estanislao Bismanos were all sentenced to life imprisonment by Judge Eric Menchavez of the Cebu City Regional Trial Court. Esperat was killed on March 24, 2005 when gunmen entered her house and shot her.
Then on last Jan. 16, the six-year old murder case of Aklan radio broadcaster Rolando Ureta was reopened after the Department of Justice (DOJ) overturned the dismissal of the case in December 2004. The DOJ resolution directed the Aklan provincial prosecutor to file the appropriate charges against Amador Paz and Jessie Ticar, who were both positively identified by an eyewitness as the killers of Ureta.
Still, there is much work to be done. The killings continue. And although Arroyo has withdrawn his libel suits, there can be no guarantee that, given the precedent he has set, legal harassments will stop. n

With reports from Katrina Albarillo and Stephen Norries Padilla

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