Online in Philippines? Check out #notocybercrimelaw
In a notoriously litigious country like the Philippines, it’s bewildering that the government coupled a law targeting so-called cybercrimes like cybersex, child pornography, identity theft, and spamming with the hoary and over-used concept of libel. And no matter how abusive those crimes may be, it’s an even bigger mystery why the government felt it should suspend…
Al-Arabiya news team missing in the Philippines
CPJ is monitoring with concern the news coverage of Baker Abdulla Atyani, a Pakistan-based Jordanian Al-Arabiya TV journalist, and his two Philippine crew members, Rolando Letrero and Ramelito Vela, who have been unaccounted for since June 12. Atyani, Letrero, and Vela left their hotel in Jolo, in the southern Philippines, to interview a commander for…
Philippines’ Aquino demonstrates selective political will
Some weeks ago, the body of Esmail Amil Enog was found. The corpse had been chopped to pieces and then thrown together in a sack. Enog was a witness in a grisly massacre in November 2009, which took the lives of 57 people, 32 of them journalists, on a stretch of lonely highway in the…
Third witness to Maguindanao massacre killed
The climate of impunity that fostered the November 23, 2009, massacre of 57 people, including 32 journalists, is alive and well not only on the southern Philippines island of Mindanao, where the massacre took place, but in all of the country. The revelation that the brutalized body of a key witness to the killings, Esmail…
In the Philippines, two murders that should be solved
The investigation into the notorious murder of muckraking Philippine journalist Marlene Garcia-Esperat in Mindanao is now seven years old. A separate hunt for conspirators in the January 2011 killing of Palawan radio journalist Gerardo Ortega is just getting started. The Regional Trial Court in Puerto Princesa City issued arrest warrants against three suspects in the…
A call to continue the struggle against impunity
Last night, hundreds of journalists and members of New York’s press freedom community met at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Manhattan for the Committee to Protect Journalists’ XXI annual International Press Freedom Awards. At the event–celebrating the extraordinary courage of five journalists from across the globe–guests and award recipients unanimously expressed their commitment to fighting…
Jose Pavia, press freedom champion, dies at 72
Jose Pavia, a veteran journalist and tireless press freedom advocate, died on April 18 in the Philippines. Pavia, known simply as “JLP” among his friends and journalist colleagues, was a key partner in CPJ’s Global Campaign Against Impunity. He was 72 and had been battling cancer.
Combating impunity, from commitment to action
This afternoon we sent out a press release announcing a $100,000 grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to support CPJ’s Global Campaign Against Impunity. The campaign enters its third year in 2011, having achieved some significant successes, including high-level commitment to prosecute the killers of journalist in the Philippines and Russia.…
Suspect says he was hired to silence broadcaster
Police in the southern Philippine province of Palawan have an unusual head start in their investigation of Monday’s murder of radio broadcaster Gerardo Ortega. They apprehended the assassin at the scene, with the help of local firefighters and bystanders, and an unusual amount of information about the killing is already in the public domain.