Maria Ressa, editor of the Philippine website Rappler, known for its tough coverage of populist President Rodrigo Duterte, was arrested on Wednesday evening in connection with a long-running libel case, adding to the growing list of criminal charges she faces.
In a story on its site, Rappler said police investigators served Ms Ressa, its chief executive officer and executive editor, with an arrest warrant in a connection with a cyber libel case filed by the country’s justice department. Rappler said the case dated back to May 2012, four months before the law it is accused of having violated took effect.
Rappler alerted its readers to the arrest via a live event on its Facebook page entitled “Maria Ressa to be arrested at Rappler headquarters”. The site and Ms Ressa face five other criminal cases relating to tax matters, and one in connection with the country’s anti-dummy law, which is meant to prevent foreigners from evading ownership restrictions they face in some protected sectors such as media.
Ms Ressa posted bail twice in December in connection with two of the tax charges.
Rappler has described the multiple criminal charges Ms Ressa faces as political persecution, allegations the Philippine government denies. Since its founding in 2012, the outlet has written critically about Mr Duterte’s war on drugs, which has killed thousands of Filipinos, activities of the president’s family, and his administration’s economic and political tilt toward China.
Human rights watchdogs say press freedoms have deteriorated in the Philippines since Mr Duterte took power in mid-2016, against the backdrop of a broader crackdown on media across south-east Asia. Ms Ressa was named Time magazine’s Person of the Year for 2018, along with the murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, the two Reuters reporters in jail in Aung San Suu Kyi’s Myanmar.
