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Joint action

Coalition of media groups calls for independent probe into massacre of journalists

(CMFR/SEAPA/IFEX) - 9 December 2009 - The November 23 Movement, a coalition of media groups, including SEAPA, has issued a statement "calling for justice for fellow journalists and other innocent civilians who were abducted, slaughtered and hastily buried in mass graves in Ampatuan, Maguindanao on November 23, 2009."

A CHALLENGE OF CONSCIENCE
A Joint Media Statement

The brutal, indiscriminate mass murder on Monday in Ampatuan town, in Maguindanao province, raises the ultimate challenge of conscience. It carries the culture of impunity at work in this country to such levels of horror that, if it remains unpunished for long, can send the nation into an inexorable descent into absolute dehumanization.

The crime thus calls for swift justice, which can only be achieved through a credible and independent process, which in turn can only be achieved without the hand of this government - a government justly mistrusted generally and openly friendly precisely to the very members of the clan accused in the massacre.

We, ourselves colleagues of the more than a score journalists who were killed, demand the following:

One, the creation of a commission outside the government to investigate the crime;

Two, the arrest and prosecution of all the people involved in it in any way, as murderers themselves or their protectors;

Three, the formation of a special court to try the case;

Four, fully guaranteed protection for the witnesses;

Five, the disarming and dismantling of all private armies, such as those evidently employed in the massacre.

Six, the enlistment of persons of unquestioned probity in the whole process;

And finally, the resignation of the government if it fails to deliver such basic satisfaction - indeed, the very same government that has encouraged, by partisanship and conspiracy, the culture of impunity of which the massacre has been the most abominable manifestation.

* The November 23 Movement is a loose coalition of media organizations calling for justice for fellow journalists and other innocent civilians who were abducted, slaughtered and hastily buried in mass graves in Ampatuan, Maguindanao on November 23, 2009. It has been calling for an independent investigation of the crime that killed 30 journalists in a single attack, suddenly catapulting the Philippines to the position of the world's deadliest place for journalists.