Category — News and Features

(Photo courtesy of IFJ)

4 March 2010

http://www.ifj.org/en/articles/ifj-joins-london-call-on-president-arroyo-to-stamp-out-impunity-in-the-philippines

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the National Union of Journalists in Great Britain and Ireland (NUJ), joined the Campaign for Human Rights in the Philippines and Amnesty International at a rally yesterday at the Human Rights Action Centre in London to mark 100 days since the massacre of 23 November 2009, which left 57 people dead, including 32 journalists in the southern province of Maguindanao in the Philippines. [Read more →]

By Ronalyn V. Olea, http://www.bulatlat.com/main/2010/02/09/morong-43-cry-torture-satur-denounces-grandslam-day-for-impunity/2/

9 February 2010

MANILA — The 43 health workers who were arrested Saturday morning in Morong, Rizal province have been subjected to physical and psychological torture, colleagues said.

After three days, relatives and colleagues were finally able to visit the 43 detainees in Camp Capinpin, in Tanay, Rizal, through the intervention of Commission on Human Rights (CHR) chairperson Leila de Lima, who earlier denounced the military for refusing access to those detained.

[Read more →]

Campaign for Human Rights in the Philippines invites you to a public event. Click on the image to enlarge and download.

Business Mirror, By Stella Gonzales, http://businessmirror.com.ph/home/opinion/16438-desaparecidos-a-familys-search-continues.html

23 September 2009

MANILA—In September 2007 the United Nations Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearance sent a letter to the Philippine government urging it to investigate the case of Jonas Burgos, a 37-year-old agriculturist who was abducted five months earlier in a crowded mall in Quezon City, one of the major cities comprising the metropolitan area in the national capital region.

Two years have passed but Jonas’s family and friends are still looking for him. [Read more →]

18 September 2009

Dear President Arroyo,

Your visit to London aims to discuss economic development in the Philippines. We do not believe that there can be any meaningful economic progress if the human rights of Filipino citizens are violated.

Madame President, you are the head of a state which stands accused of perpetrating and rewarding political killings, disappearances, torture, and the violation of basic human rights. This situation has been investigated and documented by numerous United Nations bodies as well as human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and the World Council of Churches. [Read more →]

They are usually the first to respond to cases of extrajudicial killings, torture and enforced disappearances in the Philippines. In a country where impunity prevails, these human-rights defenders have not been spared from the same atrocities that they are trying to stop.

By RONALYN V. OLEA, Bulatlat.com – http://www.bulatlat.com/main/2009/09/04/in-philippines-human-rights-advocates-live-dangerously/

4 September 2009

MANILA — In his seven years of involvement in human-rights advocacy, Fred Caña knows very well the risks it entails in a country where impunity prevails.

Caña is the secretary-general of Karapatan-Negros. Like any other human-rights worker, Caña’s tasks include documenting cases of human-rights violations, helping out the victims, survivors and their families seek justice and demanding accountability from perpetrators. For all these, the usual suspects for human-rights abuses have subjected Caña to surveillance, red baiting and different forms of harassment. [Read more →]

For full pdf text of the Executive Summary click here

For full text of Shattered Lives AI report, click here

“We inherited an age-old conflict in Mindanao, exacerbated by a politically popular but near-sighted
policy of massive retaliation. This only provoked the other side to continue the war.”
- President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo during her State of the Nation Address, 27 July 2009

REPORT SUMMARY
Yet another round of fighting between the Philippine government forces and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front
(MILF) has ended on 29 July 2009. The 2008-2009 hostilities, which displaced more than 750,000 persons
in total and led to numerous human rights abuses, officially ended with an agreement to resume peace
negotiations. One year after renewed violence between government security forces and armed groups,
Mindanao is finally beginning to see a possible end to the unrest and uncertainty— and perhaps even an end to
the 40-year armed conflict.

Their lives shattered by the armed conflict, hundreds of thousands of people in the Central Mindanao region of
southern Philippines faced the risk of unlawful killings, enforced disappearances, torture, arbitrary arrests,
displacement and burning and destruction of their homes at the hands of the Philippine armed forces, MILF
fighters, and local militias. With no means of making a living, the people have become dependent on aid.

In May 2009 the Mindanao conflict was identified as having the highest number of new internally displaced
persons worldwide1 and having “the most neglected displacement situation” in 2008. [Read more →]

By RONALYN V. OLEA, Bulatlat.com – http://www.bulatlat.com/main/2009/08/21/for-doing-its-job-chr-is-now-under-attack/

21 August 2009

The Philippine military, through its attack dogs Pastor Alcover and Jovito Palparan, are trying to discredit the Commission on Human Rights and its chairperson, Leila de Lima. Human-rights groups are understandably concerned. “Now that the CHR chairperson insists on the mandate of the commission, they consider her as an enemy,” Marie Hilao-Enriquez of Karapatan said. “That is the most dangerous mindset.” [Read more →]

http://www.bworldonline.com/BW081809/content.php?id=073

18 August 2009

A BICAMERAL body yesterday endorsed for ratification a bill that seeks to penalize torture, and in the process strengthening the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) to curb such practices. [Read more →]

“What the military does — labeling every dissenter as a communist —is dangerous,” Ms. Enriquez said. “They are in effect justifying the harassment, torture, abduction and even murder of Filipinos whose only crime was to speak out against the problems of society.”

By CARLOS H. CONDE, The New York Times – http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/13/world/asia/13iht-phils.html

13 August 2009

MANILA — Melissa Roxas, a 31-year-old artist and writer from Los Angeles, traveled to the Philippines in 2007 to learn more about the country of her birth. [Read more →]