MANILA – Women journalists here and abroad are alarmed over how community media practitioners in the Philippines are bearing the brunt of the intensifying media repression as their colleagues are subjected to terror-tagging, arrested based on fabricated charges, and one forcibly disappeared and remains missing.

“Journalism is not a crime. Instead of targeting the messengers, the authorities should instead be investigating and dealing with the real perpetrators of violence, corruption and rights abuses,” said Violet Gonda, president of the International Association of Women in Radio and Television (IAWRT).