Philippines elections: Soldiers accost, harass foreign observers at Cebu checkpoint

Military overstepped their authority, Peoples’ IOM delegates say

MANILA — Soldiers from the 78th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army twice stopped and harassed delegates of the Peoples’ International Observers Mission (Peoples’ IOM) at a checkpoint in the northwestern coast of Cebu this afternoon.

The Peoples’ IOM team in Cebu included foreign observers Elizabeth Hendrickson from the English Lutheran Church in the United States and Minerva Gutierrez, a member of the political party Quebec Solidaire in Canada.
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Philippines police, Comelec painting rosy picture of polls – Bayan

MANILA — The umbrella group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan today scored the Commission on Elections and the Philippine National Police for its ?seeming disregard of the reality of rampant fraud and violence marring the 2007 elections.?

?The PNP and the Comelec continue to paint a rosy picture of the elections. There is hardly any recognition of the gravity of the problems of violence, disenfranchisement, vote-buying and outright vote manipulation. How can they say that the elections are peaceful when more than 100 have died and the death count is expected to get higher?? said Bayan chair Carol Araullo.
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IFJ Condemns Police Raid and Intimidation of Russian Journalists

MANILA — The International Federation of Journalists today joined Russian journalists in a protest over official harassment of independent media just two weeks before the IFJ world congress opens in Moscow with a special focus on the crisis conditions facing media staff in the country. The IFJ condemned a police raid on the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta and the detention of a number of journalists in a separate incident in the town of Samara on 11 May. The raid took place one week before a planned demonstration in Samara by the political opposition group ‘Other Russia’.
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Philippines: Gabriela condemns AFP and PNP harassment, disenfranchisement of voters

MANILA – Gabriela Women’s Party Rep. Liza Maza condemned one of the first reported cases of harassment by members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police against Gabriela and progressive partylist groups, and the opposition in polling centers in Batangas and Laguna.

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In Thailand, legislation allows censorship of online news

New York, May 14, 2007?The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned that new legislation in Thailand will further weaken press freedom guarantees. On Thursday, the military-appointed National Legislative Assembly (NLA) passed legislation granting the government the power to censor critical online news reports.

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