Global Courant
MANILA — A journalist was one of five people injured in an ambush in Manila, Philippine police said Friday, the latest in a long list of violence against journalists.
Joshua Abiad, a photographer for the Manila-based tabloid Remate, was injured in the arm when gunmen in a car attacked his vehicle, said district police chief Brigadier General Nicolas Torre.
Abiad and the other injured, including his child and brother, were treated at a hospital in the Philippine capital, Torre added.
Police have not named a suspect, but Mr Torre told Manila radio station DWPM in an interview that it could be related to his work documenting a deadly seven-year-old crackdown on illegal drugs.
Mr Abiad is “a police reporter and witnesses some drug cases, so subpoenas have been sent to them to testify,” he said without naming the courts or cases involved.
“This heinous act is an attack not only on the individuals involved, but also on press freedom and the values we hold dear as a society,” Major General Edgar Okubo of the Manila Police Department said in a statement.
The archipelago nation is one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists and most murders often go unpunished.
With three journalists killed in the past year, the Philippines ranks seventh in the Committee for the Protection of Journalists’ “Impunity Index,” which measures unsolved murders of journalists relative to the total population.
It is rare for journalists to be attacked in Manila. Radio stations outside the capital are often targeted.
Thousands of mostly poor men were killed in the drug crackdown that former President Rodrigo Duterte launched during his term from 2016 to 2022.
An international investigation has been launched into possible crimes against humanity committed during that campaign.
Mr Duterte’s successor, Ferdinand Marcos, has continued the crackdown while pushing for greater focus on prevention and rehabilitation. AFP
