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Journalist and Duterte Critic Arrested for Second Time in Philippines

She was arrested last month on a libel complaint.

The head of a Philippine online news site that is among the few media agencies critical of President Rodrigo Duterte was arrested Friday in a second legal complaint about her journalism in two months. Police served an arrest warrant to Rappler CEO and Executive Editor Maria Ressa after she arrived at Manila’s international airport. Ressa was returning from a trip to the U.S. after securing a travel bond allowing her to leave the country while other criminal cases against her are pending. “Every action takes us farther into a descent into tyranny,” Ressa told reporters. “This is the weaponization of the law.” She later posted bail at a regional trial court. The Philippine journalist was honored as one of Time’s 2018 Person of the Year winners and her reporting on Duterte has been praised by human-rights advocates. She was arrested last month and freed on bail in a libel complaint filed by a businessman, who accused Rappler of linking him to illegal drugs, human trafficking, and murder in a news report without getting his side or any evidence.