The #HoldTheLine (#HTL) Coalition has welcomed the dismissal of a cyber-libel charge against Rappler CEO and founder Maria Ressa in the Philippines — the second “spurious” charge against Ressa to be dropped in just two months, says Reporters Without Borders.

The #HTL coalition calls for all remaining charges to be immediately dropped and the endless pressure against Ressa and Rappler to be ceased.

Journalists are fearful that increased harassment, abuse and violence directed towards them during the covid-19 pandemic could become the new normal, says the union for Australian media workers.

Releasing its 2021 report into the state of press freedom in Australia, Unsafe at Work – Assaults on Journalists, the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance says attacks on journalists increased both globally and and in Australia throughout 2020.

MEAA has been cataloguing the decline of press freedom in Australia now for 20 years.

• READ MORE: Fiji drops three places in RSF press freedom index over gagging critics

MEAA says political polarisation caused by the pandemic was behind much of the rising animosity towards journalists, particularly through social media.

But the union also warns that law enforcement agencies have become more heavy-handed in their treatment of journalists.

According to MEAA’s 2021 press freedom survey – the fourth year it has been conducted – Australian journalists are fearful of an increasingly hostile working environment where physical assaults, online abuse and harassment by law enforcement agencies are becoming common.

Although most working journalists who completed the survey said they had not been physically attacked or harassed themselves, 88.8 percent said they were fearful that threats, harassment and intimidation was on the rise.

Assaults on journalists
A quarter of all journalists surveyed said they had been assaulted at least once during their career, and one-in-five said they had been harassed by police while reporting over the past 12 months.

A larger number – 35 percent – have been subjected to threats to their safety online and 70 percent said they did not believe their employer provided sufficient training or support in situations where they faced threats or assaults.

MEAA chief executive Paul Murphy said an MEAA media release that the survey results were unsettling.

“Journalists know that their work will always be under scrutiny and expect it to be criticised, but they are entitled to a safe workplace like all other workers,” he said.

“But in recent years, and encouraged by politicians, journalists are being exposed to much more than an acceptable critique of their work.

“They are threatened and sometimes assaulted at public events, while social media has now evolved into a vehicle for abuse, harassment and threats against journalists. Sometimes these attacks are one-offs but increasingly they are part of a torrent of abuse, which is a weapon to hurt and to harm.

“The polarisation of politics is a key feature in much of this abuse.

Urgent action needed
“Urgent action is needed to ensure journalists can carry on their duties to our communities free from abuse, harassment, arrests and violence.”

Overall, MEAA says that there has been little improvement in press freedom in Australia over the past 12 months, although the union welcomed the decision by the Australian Federal Police not to prosecute three journalists on national security grounds following raids in 2019.

MEAA is hopeful that reform is slowly approaching towards a national uniform defamation regime, and there are positive signs that the Queensland government will finally adopt journalist shield laws, bringing it into line with all other jurisdictions.

MEAA will release its 2021 report into the state of press freedom in Australia, Unsafe at Work – Assaults on Journalists, on UNESCO World Press Freedom Day today – Monday, May 3.

The annual report catalogues MEAA’s press freedom concerns in Australia, and the region.

Solicitor-General Jose Calida asked the Supreme Court today to issue a gag order against ABS-CBN, claiming the Philippines’ largest television network was engaging in “propaganda” to sway the justices in the quo warranto case seeking to void its franchise.

Calida filed the “very urgent” motion a week after bringing ABS-CBN to the High Court, accusing the Lopez-led TV network of employing “highly abusive” practices and that its franchise should be forfeited.

The Solicitor-General cited a background video about the quo warranto case by senior reporter Christian Esguerra, and commentaries on the ABS-CBN News website.

READ MORE: Will media freedom survive in the Philippines?

Under the sub judice rule, courts restrict discussions on the merits of pending cases, to avoid prejudgment and influence on the court that could lead to a miscarriage of justice.

Violators may be liable for indirect contempt, based on the Rules of Court.

But there has to be “clear and present danger,” meaning “the evil consequence of the comment must be ‘extremely serious and the degree of imminence extremely high’ before an utterance can be punished,” Associate Justice Noel Tijam wrote in a 2018 decision on a gag order in the case of the quo warranto petition that led to the ousting of Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, which Calida also initiated.

“Freedom of speech should not be impaired through the exercise of the power of contempt of court unless there is no doubt that the utterances in question make a serious and imminent threat to the administration of justice. It must constitute an imminent, not merely a likely, threat,” Tijam’s decision stated.

Risk of contempt
Reacting to Calida’s gag order petition, Senator Panfilo Lacson said: “I hope the Supreme Court will not include the Senate or any of its committees in the gag order, if issued as petitioned by the Solicitor-General, in deference to the settled jurisprudence that tackled similar issues in the past.”

“What may be covered, though, are the resource persons who will be invited to shed light on this instant case involving the franchise of ABS-CBN as they are not exempt from the sub judice rule, which covers litigants and witnesses, members of the bar and the public in general,” he said in a statement.

“Thus, they may run the risk of being cited for contempt once they express their opinions that might pose a clear and present danger in the administration of justice by directly influencing the members of the Court in rendering their votes to resolve the pending petition for quo warranto,” Lacson said.

Senator Grace Poe, who was set to conduct an inquiry into the ABS-CBN franchise, said the hearing would push through “according to our constitutional mandate.”

“It is up to the Supreme Court to act on that motion under existing laws and jurisprudence where it recognised the jurisdiction of its co-equal branch,” she said in a statement.

Calida’s quo warranto petition has earned condemnation from media workers, academics and other stakeholders, many of them describing it as an attack on press freedom.

President Rodrigo Duterte had vowed to block the renewal of ABS-CBN’s franchise, which expires at the end of March 2020.

There are moves in the Senate and House of Representatives to give ABS-CBN a temporary licence to allow it to operate while lawmakers discuss the renewal of its franchise. Some 11,000 jobs are at stake.

The High Court gave ABS-CBN 10 days to comment on Calida’s petition.

Felipe F. Salvosa is coordinator of the journalism programme at the University of Santo Tomas in the Philippines and a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.

• Philippine protesters back ABS-CBN survival against Durterte

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has condemned many media freedom violations during the general elections held in Papua New Guinea from 24 June to 8 July, including a gag order on a popular blogger as a result of a complaint by the head of the PNG Electoral Commission.

Journalists who went to cover the elections in the northern province of Madang were kept at bay by the police and the Electoral Commission, said the Paris-based RSF.

In the capital, Port Moresby, the media were barred from filming or taking photos in the city’s main vote-counting centre.

Amid many reports on social networks of allegations of vote-buying and violence, the authorities also took alarming measures against citizen-journalists, most notably blogger Martyn Namorong after he referred to Electoral Commissioner Patilias Gamato as a “tomato” in one of his many posts criticising the chaotic elections.

As reported by Asia Pacific Report and Pacific Media Watch, Gamato brought a suit claiming that he had been “seriously injured in his character, credit and reputation” in Namorong’s post, which went viral.

Defending his decision to sue, Gamato said: “I don’t look like a tomato, I’m a human being. So that’s defamatory, so I had to take him to court.”

The National Court, located in the Port Moresby administrative district of Waigani, responded by issuing a gag order, banning Namorong from publishing further “defamatory remarks” on Facebook and Twitter.

‘Duty to inform’
“Journalists and citizen-journalists have a duty to inform the public about what has gone wrong during an election.” RSF said.

“The courts and the authorities must recognise that Martyn Namorong committed no crime and must therefore lift the censorship order imposed on him.”

An international NGO that defends the freedom to inform, RSF added: “A country cannot claim to be democratic just because it holds elections. It must also respect and protect media freedom, which is the cornerstone of every democracy.”

Namorong’s lawyer, Christine Copland, said her client had no chance to speak when the gag order was imposed because court officials said they “could not locate him” to serve the documents, as reported by Asia Pacific Report.

Namorong’s response to the order was to post a photo of himself blindfolded and gagged. After another hearing was scheduled for today, he tweeted: “I am as cool as a cucumber about [the] hearing as my lawyers are no couch potatoes.”

Papua New Guinea is ranked 51st out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2017 World Press Freedom Index.

• Blogger Martyn Namorong gagged