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FOCAP STATEMENT ON THE NOV. 23 MASSACRE OF JOURNALISTS AND CIVILIANS IN MAGUINDANAO PROVINCE |
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The Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines condemns in the strongest terms the barbaric mass murder of defenseless civilians - including more than a dozen journalists - in Ampatuan town in Maguindanao on November 23.
We condole with the families of the murdered journalists, some of whom FOCAP members had occasion to work with in the past. These courageous media personnel were only doing their job to report crucial political developments in Mindanao and should not have been directly targetted by any partisan armed groups.
Their systematic and calculated killings are a direct affront to democratic principles, and aim to strike fear and to muzzle free, fearless and balanced reporting.
It is the heaviest loss of lives for the Philippine media, possibly in the whole world, in a single day and comes on the heels of a series of many unsolved killings of Filipino journalists in recent years.
The death of our comrades will not go beyond mere statistics, but will serve to inspire FOCAP to continue to defend press freedom.
The brutal, brazen and cold-blooded manner in which the victims were abducted in public then shot point blank shatters all sense of civility and concretely puts into question the capability of local authorities to protect ordinary civilians, including working journalists. The murderers have flourished in their territories and certainly felt they were above the law.
It is a chilling prelude to the crucial 2010 presidential, congressional and local elections and erodes the public's sense of security and confidence on law enforcers.
We demand that the government move with a sense of urgency in solving this dastardly heinous crime and all other unpunished attacks on the press, which have only emboldened their perpetrators and threaten a crucial pillar of the country's democracy. |
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