“As Asia’s leading alliance of 23 news media, we urge President Rodrigo Duterte and his government to be fair and impartial in the treatment of media organisations in his country. The people of the Philippines, and the media that serves them, deserve no less,” the ANN said in a statement issued on Thursday evening.

The ANN said that Ressa’s arrest for pursuing the truth in a case with significant ramifications for society was a violation of the freedom that media organisations need to have in order to function as a key pillar of democracy.

“This is particularly important in Asia, where systems of democratic representation, accountability and legal recourse are at various stages of nascent development, with much room for improvement and need for safeguarding,” the ANN statement said.

The alliance – in which The Straits Times is a member – said it was “seriously disturbed” by the manner of Ressa’s arrest and urged the Philippine government to refrain from intimidation of the media in any form.

The ANN said it had noted that the arrest warrant for Ressa’s arrest was served close to 5pm on Tuesday (Feb 13), when courts were about to close.

It also took note that the warrant was based on a complaint filed by a businessman five years ago over a story published on Rappler’s website in 2012.

The complaint had been dismissed by the Phililppines’ National Bureau of Investigation in February 2018, which had found that the one-year prescriptive period had lapsed and there was no basis to proceed. The same case was revived eight days later, which led to Ressa’s arrest.

Rappler’s story had linked the businessman to murder, human trafficking and drug trafficking. While the ANN acknowledged that the allegations had been contested by the businessman’s lawyers, Ressa’s arrest without any attempt to determine the truth left the alliance disturbed over the conditions under which journalists had to operate in the Philippines.

“That the arrest follows charges of tax evasion against Rappler, which are still being investigated, is reason for further anguish. It inevitably raises serious questions about whether the charges are politically motivated,” the ANN said in its statement.

    Shamima Begum, who ran away from London with two school friends in 2015, spoke to The Times from a refugee camp where she had fled the collapse of the IS group’s “caliphate” in eastern Syria.

Now 19, she expressed no regrets about joining the jihadists but said that two of her children were dead and she was now heavily pregnant.

“I just could not endure any more,” she told the newspaper.

    She added: “I was also frightened that the child I am about to give birth to would die like my other children if I stayed on.

“So I fled the caliphate. Now all I want to do is come home to Britain.”

Begum made headlines around the world when, aged just 15, she left to join the jihadists with friends from Bethnal Green in east London. Another girl from the same school had run away the year before.

One girl, Kadiza Sultana, has been reported killed.

Begum said the other two, Sharmeena Begum — no relation — and Amira Abase stayed on in Baghouz, where IS fighters are making their last stand to hold on to the proto-state they declared in 2014.

“They were strong. I respect their decision,” Begum said of her friends.

She added: “I’m not the same silly little 15-year-old schoolgirl who ran away from Bethnal Green four years ago. And I don’t regret coming here.”

– ‘Challenge for all of us’ –

The British authorities estimate around 900 Britons travelled to Syria and Iraq to join the conflict, of whom around 300-400 have since returned — and 40 have been prosecuted.

As of last month, around 200 were believed to still be alive and in the region.

Speaking to Sky News, Security Minister Ben Wallace said it was “worrying” that Begum had not expressed regret about going to Syria.

He also noted the difficulties faced by many governments of how to deal with those returning from abroad.

“It is a challenge for all of us,” he told BBC radio.

“Some of them were groomed… when they were young but are now adults and some of them are hardened fighters.

“We have successfully prosecuted a number of them in the last few years when they have come back and the others should expect the same if they return.”

The United States had said it is ready to help countries repatriate IS jihadists detained in Syria but that ultimately it is up to their home governments to come up with solutions.

Under new anti-terrorism legislation adopted in Britain this week, British nationals spending time in Syria face arrest and up to 10 years in prison on their return.

The law toughens previous legislation that required authorities to prove returning nationals had engaged in terrorist activities while abroad.

A lawyer who represented the families of Begum and her two friends four years ago, Tasnime Akunjee, told The Times he was “thankful she’s alive”.

He noted that when they ran away, “there was an understanding that as long as they had committed no further offence they will not be prosecuted and become to seen as victims”.

– ‘My first severed head’ –

Begum married a Dutch fighter soon after arriving in Syria. “Mostly it was normal life in Raqqa, every now and then bombing and stuff,” she told The Times.

“But when I saw my first severed head in a bin it didn’t faze me at all. It was from a captured fighter seized on the battlefield, an enemy of Islam. “I thought only of what he would have done to a Muslim woman if he had the chance.”

Begum said she was nine months pregnant. She said her two previous children had died in the past three months — a daughter, Sarayah, became ill, and a son, Jerah, whose death was linked to malnutrition.

“In the end, I just could not endure any more,” she said of her desire to get out.

Begum fled with her husband, but he surrendered to a group of Syrian fighters allied to the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces.

“The caliphate is over,” she said, adding that “there was so much oppression and corruption that I don’t think they deserved victory”.

She acknowledged her notoriety but said: “I’ll do anything required just to be able to come home and live quietly with my child.”

Clooney, who attended the couple’s wedding last year, on Tuesday stirred up a hornet’s nest of discontent by accusing the London tabloids of giving the new Duchess of Sussex “a raw deal”.

“She’s a woman who is seven months pregnant and she is being pursued and vilified and chased in the same way that Diana was,” the Hollywood superstar told Australian magazine WHO during an interview in Los Angeles.

“It’s history repeating itself,” Clooney warned. “And we’ve seen how that ends.”

    The ending Clooney referred to was the 1997 car crash in Paris in which Diana died along with Dodi Al-Fayed as they fled the paparazzi.

The tragedy triggered mass public mourning in the UK and soul searching on the part of the press.

It turned royal reporters into villains and forced the media to significantly alter its code of conduct.

Pictures obtained through “persistent pursuit” were banned and a “reasonable expectation of privacy” had to be observed.

The arrival in British public life last year of the mixed-race US actress put these new rules to the test with initially positive coverage slowly giving way to stories about “Duchess Difficult”.

Meghan, 37, was said to have been tough on staff, with tensions also reported between her and Prince William’s wife Catherine.

Following months of unwanted publicity focused on rifts with her family, the Mail on Sunday also published a letter she wrote to her estranged father begging him to “stop lying” and “exploiting my relationship with my husband”.

“You’re taking a letter from a daughter to a father and broadcasting it everywhere,” Clooney fumed. “It’s irresponsible.”

– ‘Utter fantasy’ –

It did not take long for the British media to tell Clooney to keep his thoughts to himself.

“George Clooney’s claims of Meghan Markle and Diana are utter fantasy,” The Times declared.

The Telegraph ran a story under the headline: “Why Meghan isn’t the new Diana.”

And celebrity TV presenter Piers Morgan penned an article in the Mail Online asking if Clooney was “a REAL friend or just another famous person Meghan’s latched onto at the expense of those who, until recently, she professed to care about”.

Most of the recent headlines have been about Meghan’s father.

But the bigger question facing British society as a whole is whether the papers’ two-decade truce with Buckingham Palace is coming to an end.

Veteran royal watcher and biographer Penny Junor said the cases of Meghan and Diana could hardly be more different.

“I haven’t heard that Meghan is complaining of the paparazzi. I’ve never heard anyone talk about that being a problem,” Junor told AFP.

“I think (Meghan) is able to go about her life and walk in the park and be in restaurants and be a normal person without a dozen paparazzi following her,” she said.

“Diana was not able to do that.”

Both Junor and Morgan accused Meghan and her father of courting trouble by trying to settle scores through the press.

The Mail on Sunday’s letter followed an article featuring several of Meghan’s friends in People magazine entitled: “The truth about Meghan Markle’s dad.”

Morgan said it was “staggering” that “Meghan thinks the way to resolve this bitter dispute is to unleash her friends to attack her dad in People magazine”.

Junor recalled that Diana also used the press by giving private briefings to favourite reporters.

“That’s a very dangerous thing to do and it did eventually blow up in her face,” Junor said.

But she insisted that times had changed.

“I think there was a lot of naivety in the Diana era,” she said.

“I think everybody has gotten much wiser to the media and how destructive the media can be.”

Ressa spent a night in detention after authorities arrested the veteran reporter at her Manila office Wednesday in a sharp upping of government pressure on her and her website Rappler.

The site and Ressa, 55, have been hit with tax evasion charges and now a libel case after clashing repeatedly with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte over his deadly crackdown on narcotics that has killed thousands.

“It’s about two things: abuse of power and weaponisation of the law,” an emotional Ressa told journalists as she stepped out of a Manila court where she posted bail.

“What we are seeing is death by a thousand cuts to our democracy,” added Ressa, who was named a Time Magazine “Person of the Year” in 2018 for her journalism.

Ressa paid 100,000 pesos ($1,900), the sixth time she posted bail to avoid detention following a slew of charges.

International condemnation from dignitaries and press freedom and human rights groups has poured in since plainclothes agents appeared at Rappler to serve an arrest warrant on the charge that carries up to 12 years behind bars.

“The arrest of Maria Ressa is an outrage,” said Committee to Protect Journalists Board Chair Kathleen Carroll. “She should be freed immediately and the Philippines government needs to cease its multi-pronged attack on Rappler.”

Former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright also stood by Ressa.

“The arrest of journalist @mariaressa by the Philippine government is outrageous and must be condemned by all democratic nations,” Albright said in a tweet where she called Ressa a friend.

Duterte attacks on media 

The libel case against Ressa and former Rappler reporter Reynaldo Santos, Jr. stems from a 2012 report written about a businessman’s alleged ties to a then-judge on the nation’s top court.

While investigators initially dismissed the businessman’s 2017 complaint about the article, the case was subsequently forwarded to prosecutors for their consideration.

The legal foundation of the case is a controversial law aiming to crack down on online offences ranging from harassment to child pornography.

Ressa’s team has argued the legislation did not take effect until months after the story was published and is not retroactive, however the government has countered that it is fair game because the story was updated in 2014.

“In essence in the contemplation of the law it is a new article because of the modification, republication,” Markk Perete, spokesman for Department of Justice prosecutors, told AFP. “That is deemed as a new article.”

Rappler concedes the story was updated, but notes it was to fix a typo and no substantive changes were made.

The businessman who sued Rappler, Wilfredo Keng, on Thursday welcomed the charges as he said the website “destroyed my reputation and endangered my life”.

Duterte has lashed out at other critical media outfits, including the Philippine Daily Inquirer newspaper and broadcaster ABS-CBN.

He had threatened to go after their owners over alleged unpaid taxes or block the network’s franchise renewal application.

Some of the drug crackdown’s highest-profile detractors have wound up behind bars, including Senator Leila de Lima, who was jailed on drug charges she insists were fabricated to silence her.

Ressa insists the site is not anti-Duterte, saying it is just doing its job to hold the government to account.

Agents of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) conducted the arrest at around 5 p.m., even as the warrant was already issued by the Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 46 on Tuesday, February 12.

As she was being ushered out of her office, Ressa said she was shocked by her sudden arrest. “It’s a shock, but we are going,” she told reporters.

She also said that the NBI agents treated her professionally during the serving of the warrant.

“They told me that, ‘Ma’am, trabaho lang po ito.’ All I will say is ang dami nang tao na [nagsabi na] trabaho lang po but [dapat] tingnan natin kung ano talaga ‘yung trabaho na ‘yun,” she said.

(They told me that, “Ma’am, we’re just doing our job.”  I will say is there are a lot of people who said they are just doing their jobs, but we should look at what this job really is.)

Ressa, who also faces five cases of tax evasion before the Court of Tax Appeals and the Pasig City Regional Trial Court, said she will not be silenced by any amount of criminal charges.

“We are not intimidated. No amount of legal cases, black propaganda, and lies can silence Filipino journalists who continue to hold the line,” she said.

“These legal acrobatics show how far the government will go to silence journalists, including the pettiness of forcing me to spend the night in jail,” she added.

Ressa’s cyber libel case stems from the complaint of businessman Wilfredo Keng, who was the subject of Rappler’s article titled “CJ using SUVs of a controversial businessman” published in 2012.

The CJ referred to in the story was former Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona, who was then under an impeachment trial.

Keng had denied the allegation and requested Rappler take down the article.  Rappler instead updated the story in 2014.

Ressa will spend the night at the office of the NBI after a Pasay City night court refused to accept bail for her case.

“Our mission is to maintain a peaceful presence and support international law by sailing in international waters,” Captain J Patrick Thompson, carrier executive officer, told reporters during a tour of his vessel.

Initiated in 1982, Cobra Gold is the largest Asia-Pacific military exercise held in Thailand every year. The training in recent years has mostly focused on humanitarian and disaster relief, but Thompson did not disclose what role his ship took in the drill.

Participating countries include the US, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan and South Korea. The drill was launched on Tuesday and will last until February 22.

The carrier is capable of conducting sustained air operations, maritime interdiction, counter-piracy operations, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.

“Our objective here in Thailand is to strengthen the long-standing ties as well as to give our crew members some rest,” Thompson said.

Members of the Thai Royal Navy were also present during the press tour.

The USS John C Stennis is capable of accommodating up to 6,200 sailors and marines. With a 330-metre-long flight deck and a height of nearly 75 metres, the carrier has four catapults and four lifts and can accommodate up to 70 tactical aircraft. It has two anchors, each weighing 30 tonnes.

Frequent visitor

First commissioned in 1995, the USS John C Stennis has been to Thailand several times, the most recent being in 2012, and has completed eight full deployments on international waters.

The carrier is named after late senator John C Stennis, who served in the US senate for up to 41 years. Stennis stood firm by his belief in maintaining US military superiority, with a strong navy at the top of his agenda. The USS John C Stennis carrier also features a museum dedicated to the senator.

When asked if the carrier has sailed through the contentious South China Sea, Captain Thompson said yes, adding that the sea was a very busy area.

The captain, however, did not disclose where his vessel will be heading next, adding that the USS John C Stennis can remain offshore for as long as needed as they can have supplies dropped off to maintain operations.

He explained that supplies can be replenished in two ways: by air via helicopters and aircraft, and by sea where ships can be connected with fuel hoses and cables.

“The most difficult part of the job is not knowing how long a deployment will last,” a crew member said. “I’ve been on missions that have lasted from two to six months.”

Those jailed were among dozens enacting a mock funeral on December 28 calling for more security at a Mandalay university in central Myanmar after a student’s murder near its campus.

They burned paper coffins and portraits of the city’s chief minister, Myanmar’s security and home affairs ministers, and the head of the university, calling for increased security around the students’ compound.

Three people were arrested during the protest and four others were detained a few days later, when they rallied for their peers’ release.

    The seven students were each sentenced to a total of three months in prison with hard labour for protesting without permission and arson, student leader Ei Mon Khin told AFP by phone from the court.

“They will be taken to Obo prison in Mandalay later,” she said.

Time served will be deducted from their sentences, meaning they face a further one and a half months in jail.

This is one of several recent examples of a heavy-handed response to protests by authorities.

On Tuesday police fired rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse a crowd of several thousand in eastern Kayah state, the latest in a string of rallies against a statue of Aung San, father of civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

He is widely revered by the majority ethnic Bamar (Burmese) population as an independence hero, but is viewed critically among many ethnic minority groups, who see him as a symbol of Bamar domination.

Police agreed Tuesday evening to release dozens of arrested protesters in return for a suspension of the rallies while talks take place, state-run Global New Light of Myanmar reported, a development welcomed by rights groups.

“The Myanmar authorities have a long history of using excessive and lethal force against peaceful protesters,” said Fortify Rights CEO Matthew Smith.  “The government needs to break the trend now.”