Posted by: nychrp2005 | November 11, 2008

Another Activist Killed

November 12, 2008

Another activist in Davao del Norte was killed by suspected state agents, Nov. 10.

Rolando Antolihao, cluster coordinator of Bayan Muna (People First) in Kapalong town, Davao del Norte and a worker at the Global Fruits Corporation was shot seven times in his home in Gabuyan village at around 6 p.m., according to Karapatan (Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights) in Southern Mindanao.

Kelly Delgado, secretary general of Karapatan-Southern Mindanao Region said the assassins in civilian clothes knocked at the victim’s house. When Antolihao opened the door, he was shot several times.

Antolihao’s death came just four days after Danilo Qualbar, a Bayan Muna coordinator and farmers’ association president in Compostela town, Compostela Valley, Mindanao was gunned down by motorcycle-riding gunmen.

Delgado said Antolihao was the fifth victim of extrajudicial killings in southern Mindanao region and the third Bayan Muna leader killed this year.

The Kilusang Mayo Uno (May First Movement) condemned the killing. GO TO BULATLAT

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MISA PARA SA KAPAYAPAAN

AT KARAPATANG PANTAO

(MASS FOR PEACE AND HUMAN RIGHTSmisang bayan 12.10.08

IN COMMEMORATION OF THE 60TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE
UNITED NATION’S (U.N.) ADOPTION AND PROCLAMATION OF THE
UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS

December 10, 2008, 6:30 PM
Chapel of San Lorenzo Ruiz
378 Broome Street (between Mott and Mulberry)
New York, NY 10013

December 10th, 2008 marks the 60th year of the United Nations General Assembly’s adoption and proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As the world celebrates this day as an important event in advancing and protecting to the universality of human rights, Filipinos around the world have very little to celebrate. READ MORE

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Bayan and Karapatan raise violations of economic rights and threats to human rights defenders before UN body

News Release
November 11, 2008

(GENEVA) The umbrella group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) and the human rights group Karapatan today attended a briefing of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights a day before the scheduled review of the Philippine government’s compliance with the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural rights.

Among the issues raised were the plight of activist leaders from Southern Tagalog and Metro Manila, more than 30 of whom are now faced with arrest warrants or are being detained after being charged with multiple murders. Among those already arrested is Atty. Remigio Saladero who is also chief legal counsel for the labor group Kilusang Mayo Uno. READ FULL ARTICLE

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GO TO PDI ONLINE

Bayan Muna leader slain in Compostela

By Frinston Lim, Allan Nawal
Mindanao Bureau
11/06/2008

TAGUM CITY, Philippines—Unidentified armed men shot and killed another leftwing peasant leader in the municipality of Compostela in Compostela Valley province Thursday afternoon, militant groups reported.

Inspector Leopoldo Mantilla, deputy town police chief, later confirmed that Danny Qualbar was shot on his way home aboard a motorcycle as he was passing by the village of Osmeña around 5:30 p.m.

He said the police were still investigating the killing. READ MORE

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NYCHRP’s Response to Amnesty International

November 6, 2008

Dear Amnesty International:

This letter serves two purposes.

The first is to thank you for putting forth a strong statement that urges the President-elect Barack Obama to place the promotion and respect for human rights at the center of Washington’s agenda. As a local human rights advocacy group in New York, and with the Philippines still undergoing a human rights crisis, we hope your statement will be seriously considered and your suggestions taken up by Obama’s administration.

Our second objective is to point an oversight in your list of calls for the new President-elect. While we agree with your calls, we are disappointed in the non-mention of the lifting of existent blacklists that tag individuals and charities as foreign terrorist (FT) organizations and therefore “enemies of the state”. We all know that these so-called lists, as part of the post-9/11 climate and the Global War on Terror, are more instruments of warmongers to sow widescale fear and paranoia, and silence legitimate and justified dissent by stripping dissidents of their fundamental human rights. READ FULL LETTER

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October 24, 2008

Illegal arrest and detention of Atty. Remigio Saladero Jr.


At 1p.m. yesterday (23 October 2008), Atty. Remegio Saladero Jr. was arbitrarily arrested in his house-cum-law office in Antipolo, Rizal on a defective warrant of arrest supposedly charging him with frustrated and multiple murder. He was arrested by members of the Antipolo police and was brought to Camp Vicente Lim in Laguna. He was put in the same stockade where the Tagaytay 5 (peasants and peasant advocates arrested on April 2006) were also held for more than 2 years.

Atty. Saladero Jr. is the chief legal counsel ofKilusang Mayo Uno (KMU), Pro Labor Legal Assistance Center’s (PLACE) Board Chairman, Anakpawis Partylist’s Legal Counsel, National Federation of Labor Unions (NAFLU)-KMU chief legal counsel and a member of the National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL), among others. He graduated law at San Beda College and was among the top 20 when he took the bar in 1984. He was also a law professor at the Lyceum and the Dominican College. He is also a columnist at the on-line newspaper Pinoy Weekly.READ ACTION ALERT

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Arrest Palparan & His Commander-in-Chief!

With the recent ruling of the Supreme Court officially linking the abduction and torture of brothers Raymond and Reynaldo Manalo of Bulacan to retired Army General Jovito Palparan, local rights group New York Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines (NYCHRP) challenged the Supreme Court (SC) to take the landmark verdict to the next level and pursue justice by “arresting Palparan and his commander-in-chief.”

“We want the complete pursuit of justice. With this SC ruling, there is now basis to arrest Jovito Palparan for the capture and torture of the Manalo brothers, who were detained for 18 months, heavily tortured, and were lucky enough to escape,” stated NYCHRP member Gary Labao, also originally from Bulacan.READ FULL ARTICLE

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NY Rights Group Clarifies Child Soldier Accusations to Human Rights Watch


New York- In response to allegations from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) last month that Gloria Macapagal Arroyo would file claims against the New Peoples Army (NPA) and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) for purportedly recruiting child soldiers into their combat ranks while in the United States, a local rights group met with Human Rights Watch (HRW) yesterday to refute the charges, and condemn the scheme as a tactic of the Arroyo government to sanitize its image to the international human rights community instead. READ MORE


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