Threats to press freedom: Terror in Paris!

A few days ago, my son-in-law, Atty. Jennoh Tequillo called me on my cellphone and with a sigh of relief he just wanted to know if I was okay. Apparently a lot of his friends sent him messages of condolences on the passing of radio broadcaster Antonio "Tony" Avila. Indeed, so many people mistake me for Tony Avila… but somehow God has allowed us to do our work, while he already took the lives of our friends.

Tony Avila wasn't related to me and he would often brag that he didn't belong to the "rich" Avilas. But he was our classmate for two years during our days at the University of San Carlos Boy's High School  Class 66. But somehow he transferred to a different school later. We met once more when he became a radio commentator, while I joined the print media. But I didn't know that he was in frail health and passed away last Monday. He was always a good friend to me. At this point, allow me to condole with Tony Avila's family in the hour of their bereavement and may we ask our pious readers to please pray for the repose of his soul.

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The Year 2015 is just beginning when suddenly, CNN broke the news last Wednesday reporting that three suspected terrorists went on a killing rampage in the streets of Paris, France, attacking the main office of the Charlie Hebdo magazine whose cartoonists came up with satirical critique of the Prophet Mohammed and published in Paris. The terrorists succeeded in killing the editor-in-chief and three cartoonists who were having their editorial meeting when the terrorists firebombed their office, shouting "Allah Akbar! The Prophet has been avenged!" These gunmen killed 12 people and wounded another 7, two of them French policemen.

According to the Paris police, two of the suspects have been identified as the brothers Cherif Kouachi and Said Kouachi.  They both spoke French without any accent, which means that they were probably born and raised in France. Somehow despite their efforts to disguise themselves, using Balaklava's to hide their faces, the police found the ID of Said Kouachi at the scene of the shooting. As of press time, one of the gunmen had surrendered to the French police, but he has yet to be identified.  

How ironic that these terrorists killed innocent people all in the name of Allah and exacted their revenged in the heartland of Paris! Threats against freedom of speech by Muslim extremists aren't new. If you remember way back in 1981 when Ahmed Salman Rushdie, a Briton of Indian descent wrote the Satanic Verses, he provoked protests in the Muslim world where even the famous Ayatollah Khomeini, the Supreme Ruler of Iran, called for a "Fatwa," or a Jihad against Salman Rushdie, who eventually went into hiding.  Every now and then Rushdie surfaces in public, but he rarely does this for the threat to his life is real.

What happened in Paris last Wednesday no doubt shocked the world that Muslim extremists would go to great lengths to kill people, especially journalists in order to avenge the Prophet Mohammad. What is ironic in this particular case is the fact that these Muslim terrorists could be homegrown, meaning that they grew up in France, which is why they speak fluent French without any heavy accents that would have identified them as of Middle Eastern descent.

There is no doubt the journalist leads a dangerous life. In fact many journalists who were assigned in Syria were beheaded by the Muslim group called ISIS. Other journalists, those who belonged to Al Jazeera were imprisoned in Egypt. So even if you are a journalist assigned in Paris, you are not really safe. The problem really stems from the fact that these people would rather kill journalists to silence them.

Way back in November 23, 2009, the Philippines became infamous when 57 people, more than 20 of them journalists, were massacred in the town of Ampatuan in Maguindanao Province. This was to be the single deadliest event in the history of journalism worldwide. What is even more painful in that massacre is that five years have passed and slowly, but surely the key witnesses to this massacre have been killed in mysterious circumstances. The snail's paced justice system in this country no doubt is favorable to the accused rather than the victims of the massacre.

But if you didn't know, the threats to press freedom is a daily occurrence in this country, where prosecutors and judges play into the hands of unscrupulous lawyers who use the snail's paced justice system to silence journalists. I too am a victim of this in the only libel case filed against my person, where my accuser never appeared in court in the nearly 8 years since that case was filed. Call me lucky that at least I was hauled to court. Others like the late lawyer Nestor Archival wasn't so lucky. He was killed by suspected officers of the Traffic Command Group.