Press Statement
18 April 2007
The Antonio Zumel Center for Press Freedom (AZCPF) strongly condemns the recent attacks on media people and journalists. The assassins want to prevent the media from bringing to the public the true state of the nation and the criminal activities being committed by those in power.
The International Federation of Journalist (IFJ) today is delivering an appeal backed by nearly two hundred European parliamentarians from across the political spectrum for the immediate release of BBC journalist Alan Johnston.
The appeal, signed by 197 members of the European Parliament, is to be presented later today to the leaders of the Palestinian Authority including the offices of President Mahmoud Abbas, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and the Palestinian Legislative Council.
MANILA — This week marks another dark period for press freedom in the Philippines, with the murder of a colleague, the attempted murder of another and a libel case filed by a governor against yet another.
Carmelo Palacios, 41, field reporter of the government-run Radyo ng Bayan, was found dead in Sta. Rosa town, Nueva Ecija, Wednesday morning, his body battered and shot in the chin. He was the 51st journalist to be killed under the Arroyo administration’s increasingly blood-drenched watch, and the third this year.
MANILA — Describing the successive attacks this week on provincial media practitioners as “despicable,” President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has ordered the local law enforcement agencies to “carry out a swift and thorough investigation.”
In a statement, Press Secretary and concurrent Presidential Spokesperson Ignacio R. Bunye said attacks on journalists have “no place in a democracy that upholds press freedom.”
MANILA — Kalikasan-Peoples Network for the Environment today condemned the assassination attempt against Philippine Daily Inquirer Southern Luzon correspondent Delfin Mallari, Jr., saying that the Arroyo administration was doing nothing to prevent human rights violations against journalists and environmental activists.