Ressa is an award-winning journalist and the founder and CEO of Rappler, a media company launched in Manila in 2012 that uses social media as a central platform for distributing its work.  Rappler and Ressa got into hot water with the Philippines’ hardline President Rodrigo Duterte, simply for reporting truthfully on his brutal crackdown on drug users and traffickers, which has left thousands dead.
She came under attack online, often by social media accounts linked to Duterte supporters. Rumors and false information about Ressa, in particular, began to spread, and often the accusations were repeated by either Duterte himself or a government-friendly newspaper such as the Manila Times.As reported last month in a CBSN Original on Ressa, she is now facing 11 criminal charges, and may be on the verge of going to jail.”I don’t know what’s next,” Ressa told CBS News in June. Ressa’s “cautionary tale for the United States”Clooney, along with associates Caoilfhionn Gallagher and Kathrine O’Byrne, are to “act with a team of international lawyers as counsel to” Ressa, according to the statement published on Monday by Doughty Street Chambers. Clooney has backed a number of high-profile causes, from refugees in the U.S. to students demanding gun law reforms. But Ressa is not facing charges anywhere but her native country, and it remained unclear how much practical help Clooney and her team can provide the journalist as she battles the charges in Philippine courts. “We will pursue all available legal remedies to vindicate her rights and defend press freedom and the rule of law in the Philippines,” Clooney said in the statement released by the law firm. They were to work in conjunction with another international law team in Washington D.C., including Daniel Feldman, a former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia.Doughty Street Chambers said Clooney’s team would “coordinate as necessary with domestic counsel in Manila.”