The International Centre forJournalists (ICFJ) and the Hold the Line coalition confirm that Nobel laureate and journalist Maria Ressa has been acquitted of financial fraud. The charge threatened to land her in jail for a decade and was a threat to freedom of speech in the Philippines and around the world. In a press release from the ICFJ, the Hold the Line Steering Committee states that,
“This verdict underlines that it is possible for President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to chart a different course to his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte, who waged a relentless campaign of media repression…We hope this judgment signals a revival of judicial independence in the Philippines after the previous administration’s instrumentalization of the courts as a means to erode press freedom and discredit independent reporting.”
The HTL Coalition calls on states committed to freedom of the press and democracy, on intergovernmental organizations, on international development agencies and media investors, and on international civil society groups to continue their defense of press freedom in the Philippines and urge President Marcos to revitalize the country’s commitment to a free press.
While Ressa has been cleared of most charges against her, she awaits a Supreme Court decision on the appeal of her 2020 cyber libel conviction. That conviction carries a jail term of up to six years. Ressa is currently out on bail.
Contact #HTL Steering Committee Members for further details: Rebecca Vincent (rvincent@rsf.org); Julie Posetti (jposetti@icfj.org); and Gypsy Guillén Kaiser (gguillenkaiser@cpj.org).