NGO to bring GMA rights cases before UN body
By Michaela P. del Callar 05/28/2010 A group of local non-government organizations (NGOs) will bring the case of the alleged unlawful detention of medical workers, dubbed the “Morong 43,” and other human rights violations committed by the government of President Arroyo before the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva. The Ecumenical Voice for Peace and Human Rights in the Philippines will send a five-man delegation to attend the 14th Session of the UNHRC in Switzerland, to be held on May 31-June 18. The Philippines is presently a member of the UNHRC. “As the curtain falls on President Arroyo’s nine-year rule, it is most certain that among others, it shall be marked as the worst in terms of adherence to human rights instrumentalities. With the implementation of Oplan Bantay Laya, the most vicious counterinsurgency program in recent memory, her government tops the scale of human rights violators in the country’s history since the martial law years,” Fr. Rex Reyes, Jr., secretary general of the National Council of Churches in the Philippines and head of delegation to Geneva, said. Joining Reyes to the UN are Marie Hilao Enriquez, chairman of the human rights alliance, Karapatan, Atty. Edre Olalia, acting secretary general of the National Union of People’s Lawyers, Atty. Carlos Zarate, secretary general of the Union of People’s Lawyers in Mindanao, and Roneo Clamor, deputy secretary general of Karapatan. The 43 health workers or the Morong 43 were arrested last February 6 by military and police forces due to suspicion of their being members of the local communist rebel group. Source: The Daily Tribune URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/nation/20100528nat2.html |
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