End impunity for journalist’s killers in the Philippines

The journalist unions in the five Nordic countries, gathered in a meeting in Helsinki, Finland, express their anger and sorrow over the massacre of 59 innocent people, among them at least 30 journalists, in the Philippines on the 23rd of November. The vicious killings are the worst ever recorded in media history.

For year after year, the central government and authorities have let the many attacks on and killings of journalists in the country go on without taking responsibility for the killings being fully investigated and the killers brought to court. This has misled local politicians, clans and criminals to believe that the international community does not see what is happening in the Philippines. Now is the time for the authorities to end the impunity for journalist killers and bring the murderers of these and more than 100 other killings of journalists and media people to justice.

The journalist unions in Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Norway and their 60.000 journalists members want to declare our solidarity with their sister union, the National Union of Journalists in the Philippines. We will in all possible ways support and defend NUJP’s brave struggle for media freedom, freedom of speech and security for all journalists in the Philippines. Only if they succeed, the Philippino people will be able to see what is going on in their country and to free themselves from corruption, impunity, lawlessness and misuse of power.