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Statements on the killing of journalists in Gaza

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ALTERMIDYA: On the Gaza information crisis

The worsening conflict in Palestine’s Gaza amid Israel’s unrelenting offensives indicates a humanitarian crisis of global concern.

Since October 7, military operations between Israel and Palestinian armed group Hamas have killed over thousands of Palestinians and injured many more in the Gaza Strip. Compounding the conflict is a total Israeli blockade of food, fuel, and other necessities to millions of people in the occupied territory in what is grounds for an international war crime.

Now, an information crisis threatens to further distort the conflict’s causes and consequences. Gaza is experiencing a near information blackout with internet and phone services cut. Israel is to blame for cutting the communications, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent.

Independent journalists like members of the Altermidya Network urge the United Nations and other human rights bodies to immediately intervene by doing everything possible to restore access to communications in Gaza.

In the same vein, we express deep concern for our fellow media workers who are covering the ongoing conflict from the front lines.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 29 journalists were killed in such operations. Most of these were Palestinians, as well as three Israelis and one Lebanese. This is on top of dozens of journalists who are injured, detained, or reported missing. Addressing the information crisis necessitates that the safety of journalists is upheld and guaranteed.

We call on all involved parties to stop killing and targeting civilians, including media workers based in Gaza. By extension, entities within the UN such as the Special Rapporteur to immediately investigate such brazen killings and attacks in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1948.

Protecting the media would serve to aid them in their job to report and explain the decades-long Palestine occupation.

Tens of thousands have been killed, while millions have been displaced in this conflict rooted in colonial acts. Unfortunately, this historically drawn out narrative will be buried along with the bodies of innocent civilians, media included, if we all silently wait as this conflict continues. The time to act is now. Those in observance of the conflict must speak out, while those in power must do all to address the very roots of this systemic violence.

For the UN and all related rights entities, the urgency to restore communications in Gaza cannot be understated. # (October 30, 2023/Quezon City, Philippines)

AMARC Asia-Pacific Condemns the killing of media workers and civilians in Gaza

The World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters, AMARC (Asia-Pacific) strongly protests the ongoing indiscriminate killings of civilians and media workers in Gaza by US-backed Israeli forces. Records show that the period since 7th of October 2023 has been the deadliest period for media workers.

The genocide in Gaza is also one of the most terrible media crises in recent times. International sources estimate that approximately 48 journalists have lost their lives while reporting from Gaza. According to a report from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), 48 journalists and media workers have been confirmed dead including 43 Palestinian, 4 Israeli, and 1 Lebanese. According to sources, the deceased media workers include those representing media organizations as well as freelancers.

Since the 1940s, the political claims and cause of Palestinians has been subject to disinformation and distortion at the highest levels of international governance and law to justify violence in Gaza and West Bank. Since the recent Al-Aqsa Floods operation, there have been various kinds of moral obfuscations and disinformation on mainstream and social media platforms to justify genocide against the Palestinians. Free, independent, and critical-minded media organisations and journalists are one of the few factors that has helped mobilise large-scale protests against this genocide. It is no surprise that media workers are heavily under attack. Issuing this statement, Dr. Ramnath Bhat, President of AMARC Asia-Pacific has called the situation in Gaza as one of the gravest conditions for freedom of journalists and other media workers.

“Independent journalists reporting from the heart of the conflict in Gaza are the only source of any credible information that is received by the rest of the world. Targeting media workers is a clear sign of genocidal intent that does not wish to see itself exposed; creates an information blackout at the global level fostering disinformation; and finally lays the ground for further intensification of genocide”

AMARC Asia-Pacific deeply mourns the deceased media workers and condemns the mass killings going on in Gaza, specifically the blanket targeting of civilians. It calls upon all concerned, especially the Government of Israel and the US to immediately stop hostilities, affect a ceasefire and end the genocide.

Statement issued by the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters, AMARC (Asia-Pacific), [email protected], November 22, 2023/Kathmandu, Nepal

Conference affirms role of community radio in human development

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The World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC) Asia-Pacific concluded its 5th Regional Conference and Assembly — held in Bangkok, Thailand from 27-30 September 2023 — by electing a Board of Directors for the next term.

The newly elected Board is led by Dr. Ramnath Bhat (India) as its President. The other members are Supinya Klangnarong (Thailand) Deputy President; Raymund Villanueva (Philippines) Treasurer; Arti Jaiman (India) Representative, Women International Network; Subas Khatiwada (Nepal) Vice President, South Asia; Sinam Mitro Sutarno, (Indonesia) Vice President, Southeast Asia; Asuka Hashizume (Japan) Vice President, East Asia; and Shane Gregory Elson (Australia) Vice President, Pacific. The newly elected Board of Directors will serve for the next four years.

The 5th AMARC Asia-Pacific Regional Conference has reiterated the significant role played by community radios in furthering human development and the expression of and support for human rights.

Endorsing the Bangkok Declaration , community radios of the Asia-Pacific region have resolved to deepen interactions with regional inter-governmental bodies, donor organizations and supporters, national associations, and United Nations organizations, to develop strategies, programs, and training opportunities for community radio stations to be better equipped to serve local communities. Community radios have reaffirmed commitment to participating in disaster planning, mitigation, response, and recovery.

Calling on the governments of the Asia-Pacific region to recognize the vital role community broadcasting plays in developing a vibrant, responsive, and democratic society and to create a regulatory and legislative environment that supports the stable operation, growth and sustainability of community radio, the Regional Conference has highlighted the commitment of community broadcasters towards the promotion of the rights of indigenous peoples to establish their own community radio stations in their own languages and have access to non-indigenous community radio without discrimination.

Members of AMARC have renewed their commitment towards creating spaces on the airwaves for peasants, workers, fisher folk, refugees, displaced people, and asylum seekers, the stateless, the trafficked and diverse and marginalized voices, irrespective of cultural, ethnic, religious, social, class, caste, disability, gender or sexual or political identification or age. While reasserting the role of community broadcasting in countering disinformation for the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms, the Regional Conference unequivocally denounced all forms of sexual and gender-based violence, particularly during times of conflict from the domestic sphere to war that is waged on the bodies of women and minorities.

Earlier, the 5th AMARC Asia-Pacific Regional released the ‘State of Community Radio in Asia-Pacific Report, 2023 .’ The first of its kind regional report presents an overall picture of the state of community broadcasting in the Asia-Pacific region based on information collected through comprehensive surveys and interviews conducted across several countries of the region.


The Regional Conference was participated by 152 members representing fifteen countries of Asia-Pacific as well as Africa, Europe, and North America. Altogether twenty-five workshops and strategic meetings were held in the Regional Conference. Topics covered ranged from digital transformation of community broadcasting to setting up online stations, tackling fake news to effective content creation on social media for social cause, indigenous broadcasting to gender relationships and intersectionality, broadcasters’ safety to climate change adaptation to Rebuilding Global Movement of Community Broadcasting. AMARC Asia-Pacific has thanked its members, donors, and partner organizations for their support for organizing the 5th AMARC Asia-Pacific Regional Conference of Community Radios.

Asia Pacific community broadcasters demand Frenchie Mae Cumpio’s freedom

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Kodao’s Villanueva elected to media group’s regional board

Community broadcasters in the Asia Pacific region called on the Philippine government to drop its prosecution against Filipino colleague Frenchie Mae Cumpio, calling charges against her “trumped-up.”

In its Bangkok Declaration, the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters-Asia Pacific (French: Association Mondiale Des Radiodiffuseurs Communautaires,AMARC-AP) further said the Philippine government must release Cumpio from her “unjust imprisonment” of more than three years.

“We are resolved to call on the Republic of the Philippines to drop all trumped-up charges against our young colleague Frenchie Mae Cumpio and immediately release her from unjust imprisonment,” AMARC-AP said.

READ: AMARC condemns the arrest of broadcaster Frenchie Mae Cumpio of the Philippines

AMARC-AP has previously denounced Cumpio’s arrest on February 7, 2020 on allegations of illegal possession of firearms and explosives and has called on the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression Irene Khan to investigate when she officially visits the Philippines next January.

READ: AMARC Asia-Pacific Demands Immediate Release of Elena “Lina” Tijamo and Frenchie Mae Cumpio of the Philippines

Other international media organizations, such as the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists and the International Association of Women in Radio and Television have also reported about Cumpio’s arrest and ongoing trial.

Cumpio was an active broadcaster of Aksyon Radyo-Tacloban DYVL 819 KHz and was training to become station manager of the prospective disaster preparedness station Radyo Tacloban when arrested.

She was also executive director and editor of alternative media outfit Eastern Vista after her stint as a campus journalist with the University of the Philippines (UP)-Tacloban student publication UP Vista.

Cumpio was only 20 years old upon arrest.

Altermidya poster of its Free Frenchie Mae Cumpio campaign.

‘Stop red-tagging independent media’

Attended by 153 delegates from 15 Asia Pacific countries at Thailand’s Thammasat University, the 5th Regional Assembly of the region’s biggest media group likewise urged the Philippine government to resolve violations on press freedom in the Philippines.

“We likewise urge the Philippine government to bring justice to all victims of media killings as well as stop its red-tagging activities and other forms of persecution against independent media to allow them, including community broadcasting, to exist and operate freely,” its declaration said.

The declaration was unanimously adopted last October 30, three days before the first death anniversary of broadcaster Percival “Percy Lapid” Mabasa, the second media killing victim under the Ferdinand Marcos Jr. administration.

The AMARC-AP assembly also unanimously voted Kodao reporter and People’s Alternative Media Network chairperson Raymund Villanueva as member of the group’s regional board.

Villanueva shall serve as treasurer and AMARC-AP regional executive committee member in the next four years. #