Barstow’s Amnesty International Club takes on freedom of the press in the Philippines.
This year at Barstow, Sophomore Lahna Groden started the Amnesty International Club, a student organization devoted to supporting the efforts of human rights organization Amnesty International. For this semester, the club has chosen a case to focus their efforts on: that of Maria Ressa, the CEO of Philippine news agency Rappler, who has been unjustly arrested on dubious allegations of cyber libel. Amnesty International has recognized her arrest as a breach of the rights of press freedom and has started a campaign for her release. Amnesty International Club has joined this campaign and encourages everyone at Barstow to do the same. Maria Ressa’s case is a complicated one, but this by no means undermines its importance. The facts of her struggle and arrest should be understood.
Five years ago, Rodrigo Duterte, president of the Republic of the Philippines, started his “war on drugs” campaign. A campaign promise from his election in 2016, Duterte promised to rid the country of illegal narcotics completely, regardless of the human toll. The cost was more than 25,000 lives taken in unlawful, extrajudicial killings.
This egregious injustice has not gone unnoticed. In June of 2020, the United Nations published a report detailing and condemning the widespread human rights violations occurring in the Philippines. “Despite credible allegations of widespread and systematic extrajudicial killings in the context of the campaign against illegal drugs, there has been near impunity for such violations” the report states. Throughout the Philippine war on drugs, during which police have trespassed on private property without a warrant, killed with impunity, and forced confessions out of civilians. There has been only one conviction for the unjust killing of a drug suspect.
Though President Duterte still has significant support in the Philippines, there are those in his country who criticize him. One particularly vocal organization is Rappler, a news agency run by Maria Ressa. Duterte has consistently attacked Ressa and Rappler for criticizing him. Ressa has been arrested many times, though only detained recently. The string of legal charges levelled against her could amount to 100 years in prison. These allegations are widely viewed as blatant violations of press freedom since the articles Ressa has been imprisoned for publishing were factual and of public interest, not libelous, as the charges against her claim. Currently, an international team of human rights lawyers is working to free Ressa.
Amnesty International, a human rights organization, has also taken an interest in Ressa’s case, and so has Barstow’s Amnesty International club, who’ve made it their top priority. Lahna Groden, president of the club, has said that, “Today, especially, when there’s a lot of news sources out there and it can be hard to verify whether what you hear from one social media or online news source is accurate… I think that more than ever we have to make sure that governments are protecting free and independent journalism.” The grave injustice of Duterte’s war on drugs and Ressa’s imprisonment for criticizing it is something the entire world should be concerned about, not just those who live in the Philippines. According to Lahna, “In the global community, if we allow the Philippine government to put a limit on free speech, that means that we’ll tolerate it elsewhere.”
Amnesty International Club has been writing letters to the Philippine embassy and plans on doing much more to help spread awareness and petition for Ressa’s release. Their latest plan is to host a call-in party to the Philippine embassy, which is open to the entire school. “It’s really impactful for all these calls to be coming in at once,” Lahna says. “Someone’s going to be, you know, listening to the answering machine… and at the end of the day, they’re going to think ‘Oh yeah people are concerned about that,’ and that message will be passed along.” While the date has not yet been determined, an email will be sent out regarding the call-in party. Lahna encourages everyone at Barstow to attend this impactful event.
