CPJ angered over journalists's arrest

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on Friday voiced its anger over the detention of journalists following the six-hour standoff in Makati City on Thursday. "This sort of mass detention of journalists doing their jobs cannot be justified on the basis of a security and identity check," said Joel Simon executive director of the New York-based organization. Simon said the detention is "government interference in news coverage with an obvious intent to intimidate the media." The CPJ statement came even as Malacañang and the National Police tried to downplay the arrest of media practitioners. Director General Avelino Razon Jr, National Police chief, insisted that he had warned the media to keep away from the "police operation." "We did not want the media ending up as human shields if the soldiers took hostages. That was one of the scenarios we considered," Razon said during a press conference in Camp Crame. The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines earlier called on the PNP "to stop treating journalists...as enemies of the state." "We protest in strongest terms the PNP's move to forcibly bring some journalists to the National Capital Region Police Office in Bicutan and condemn the confiscation of video footage of the day-long stand-off at the Manila Peninsula Hotel," the NUJP said in a statement. The Negros Press Club and the Negros Media Council for Press Freedom "denounced in the strongest terms" what it called as "media repression." "Repression took the form of treatment like criminals as they were arrested and handcuffed. Equipment for coverage and lives were threatened," the groups said in a statement. - GMANews.TV