| 
BC Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines
Press Release
Canadians and Filipinos take action vs. Philippines’ ‘killing fields’
June 15, 2006
With almost daily political assassinations in the Philippines, local
Filipinos will rally and call to “Stop the killings!” outside a dinner
banquet for visiting Philippine Vice President Noli de Castro on
Monday,
June 19 at 6 p.m. at the Floata restaurant on Keefer St.
A local human rights group will also hold a one-day conference on June
21, 2006 from 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. at the YWCA, 733 Beatty St. in downtown
Vancouver, BC, Canada. There will be a press conference as part of the
program from 12 noon to 12:30 p.m.
The conference ‘Prospects for peace, human rights and democracy in the
Philippines’ will include distinguished speakers from the Philippines
such as: Luis Jalandoni, Chairman of the National Democratic Front of
the Philippines (NDFP), Elmer Labog, chair of the militant labour union
in the Philippines – Kilusang Mayo Uno and Maita Santiago of the
migrants group Migrante-International. Local academics, church
representatives and human rights activists will also address the
conference.
“Over 600 people have been killed under the current Arroyo
administration,” says Barbara Waldern chair of the BC Committee for
Human Rights in the Philippines who is sponsoring the conference. She
says Karapatan - the largest alliance of human rights advocates in
the
Philippines, and even Amnesty International has condemned the number of
gross human rights violations.
From January 2001 to May 17 this year, /Karapatan/ documented a total
of 603 victims of extra-judicial killings, 151 victims of enforced
disappearances and more than 200 attempted killings. In 2006, an
average
of four people were killed per week.
Amnesty International’s (AI) “Report 2006: The State of the World’s
Human Rights,” stated “arbitrary arrests, unlawful killings, torture
and ‘disappearances’ were reported in the context of military
counter-insurgency operations… As well as suspected (CPP-NPA) members,
those most at risk included members of legal leftist political parties,
including /Bayan Muna/ (People First) and /Anakpawis/ (Toiling Masses),
other human rights and community activists, priests, church workers and
lawyers regarded by the authorities as sympathetic to the broader
communist movement.”
The report blamed the Arroyo government for a “culture of impunity.” AI
said “shielding the perpetrators of such killings deepened as
ineffective investigations failed to lead to the prosecution of those
responsible.”
“We have to question why these killings are happening with brazen
impunity and without any word from President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo,”
adds Waldern. She says this conference is a response from Canadians to
the Filipino people’s call for solidarity.
These killings are within the context of over 30 years of on-going
civil
war between the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the New People’s
Army (NPA) led by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). Peace
talks between the government and the National Democratic Front of the
Philippines (NDFP) - an alliance of revolutionary organizations - have
been stalled.
Filipinos make up the fourth largest visible minority group in Canada
numbering over 400,000. They are the third largest visible minority
group in BC and the second in Vancouver.
- 30 -
The media is cordially invited to cover the protest rally on June 19
and
attend the one-day event on June 21, which will include a press
conference from 12 noon – 12:30 p.m. For more information, please call:
Ted or Hetty at BCCHRP ph: 604-215-1905 or e-mail:
bcchrp@kalayaancentre.net
visit:http://www.kalayaancentre.net |
