The Cybercrime Prevention Act, under which Ms. Ressa was charged, was approved four months after the article’s publication and came into effect in October 2012.
In a court filing last year, Ms. Ressa denied the charges and called them “baffling and unfounded,” adding that the government was applying a law retroactively.
For several years, Rappler and other news outlets have closely followed a brutal antidrug war waged by Mr. Duterte that has resulted in the deaths of thousands of people. Their coverage helped to draw international attention to the campaign, resulting in widespread international rebuke.
Mr. Duterte has also threatened reporters from other publications and warned that he would not allow the renewal of the license for ABS-CBN, the biggest broadcast news network in the Philippines.
But Ms. Ressa has been on the receiving end of an onslaught of legal attacks by the government. Her star political reporter has been stripped of her press pass, equivalent to a White House pass, and Rappler has been banned from covering presidential appearances. She faces a slew of charges related to a handful of different laws including ones governing financial securities and cybercrimes.
The arrest on Wednesday provoked an outcry from journalists in the Philippines. The country’s National Union of Journalists said in a statement that the “clearly manipulated charge of cyber libel” was “a shameless act of persecution by a bully government.”
“It may try its damnedest, but we know it will fail,” the statement added of the government and its actions, because “independent Filipino journalists will never allow freedom of the press to be suppressed.”
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/13/world/asia/maria-ressa-arrested.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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