MANILA — Philippine journalist Maria Ressa was released on bail Thursday after spending the night in detention over years-old libel charges decried as the Philippine government’s latest attack on press freedom.
Ressa, the chief executive of news site Rappler, paid over $1,900 before a Manila regional court after an unexpected arrest on Wednesday afternoon. The 55-year-old veteran journalist, who is also facing charges relating to tax evasion and violation of foreign ownership laws, had spent the night at the National Bureau of Investigation.
“My stay last night at the NBI really made me think, what is this all about?” Ressa said upon posting bail. “It’s about abuse of power and the weaponization of the law. This is not just about me, not just about Rappler.”
Her arraignment is set for March 1. The deliberation of her case is expected to test the independence of Philippine courts.
She was arrested on “cyber libel” charges related to a story published in 2012, four months before the law she is believed to have breached was approved.
The government has maintained that her arrest has nothing to do with press freedom. Presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo said in a television interview Wednesday night that her story had been “clearly defamatory.”
Ressa was part of a group of journalists, including slain Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who were collectively named Time magazine’s 2018 Person of the Year. Before founding Rappler in 2012, Ressa was CNN’s bureau chief in Manila.
Opposition lawmakers, human rights groups, and press organizations around the world have voiced their support for the journalist, part of an effort to undercut Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s mounting attacks on press freedom and critics.
[Why the arrest of a journalist in Manila will echo around the world]
Duterte is best known for his bloody war on drugs, which has seen some 5,000 deaths in police operations. However, up to an estimated 20,000 have been killed in what the state calls “deaths under investigation,” which human rights watchdogs believe include summary executions. Rappler has been at the forefront of this coverage on the human cost of this war.
Duterte’s term has also seen the detention of opposition senator and vocal critic Leila De Lima and the ouster of another critic, former chief justice Maria Lourdes Sereno. He has also repeatedly slammed the church in the dominantly Roman Catholic country.
“Ressa’s persecution is part of a broader campaign by the Duterte administration to harass and silence critics not only in the media, but in the legislature, the judiciary, civil society, and the Roman Catholic Church,” Human Rights Watch researcher Carlos Conde wrote in a dispatch.
The Committee to Protect Journalists called on the government to drop charges against Ressa and her company. Ressa won the group’s World Press Freedom Award last year.
“The arrest of Maria Ressa is an outrage,” said CPJ Board Chair Kathleen Carroll. “The Philippines government needs to cease its multipronged attack on Rappler, its talented leader, and its brave staff.”
Former secretary of state Madeleine Albright tweeted that the arrest was “outrageous” and “must be condemned by all democratic nations.”
Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland also said she was “deeply troubled” by the arrest. “A free press is a bedrock of democracy,” she said in a tweet. “Canada reiterates its call for due process to be respected and for journalists to be free from harassment and intimidation.”
Read more:
Top Philippine journalist and Time person of the year arrested on libel charges
Philippine authorities move to shut down media site critical of Duterte
Trump chuckled as Duterte called journalists ‘spies.’ That’s no joke in the Philippines
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