Category Archives: Statement

[Statement] AFAD Statement on International Human Rights Day

Posted on by dars0357

10 December 2011

 

Impunity for Enforced Disappearance Must End NOW!

Today, as the world commemorates the 63rd International Human Rights Day, the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances or (AFAD) calls on all governments particularly those in the Asian region to stop enforced disappearance and to end impunity.

Enforced disappearance is considered one of the cruelest human rights transgression. It is a multiple and continuous violation of the basic human rights not only of the direct victims but also of their families and the greater society. It inflicts untold sufferings to the victims who are forcibly taken by agents of the States and denied access to legal safeguards by removing them from the protection of the law. It causes ill-effects to the victims’ families, not knowing the fate and whereabouts of their loved ones. Mothers, wives, and daughters are usually left without any means to tend their families. In South Asian context, wives of the disappeared are called “half-widows’ who are stripped of legal status to obtain pensions and other means of support.  Children of the disappeared equally suffer. They are deprived of a normal family and a good future. No doubt, enforced disappearance sows fear and terror in society.

Many governments employ this atrocious practice as a tool of state repression and political witch-hunt. It is a major human rights concern of more than 80 countries based on the 2010 report of the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, a thematic UN body created in 1980 to monitor the incidences of enforced disappearances worldwide. Many cases occur in Asian countries, the continent that submitted the highest number of cases.

The Asian region lacks a strong mechanism for redress.  There are no available domestic laws penalizing disappearance as a separate and autonomous criminal offense. Not only are cases of enforced or involuntary disappearances difficult to investigate and prosecute. They recur with each passing day in many Asian countries. Perpetrators can easily walk away from criminal accountability.

Efforts by several governments along with families of the disappeared and international human rights organizations have made possible the adoption of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance in 2006 by the United Nations General Assembly and its consequent entry into force on 23 December 2010. To date, this international human rights instrument has 90 signatories and 30 States Parties.

It is but imperative for all states to accede to the international treaty against enforced disappearances without reservation and immediately adopt effective national laws to abolish this horrendous practice.

While these legal measures and mechanisms may not bring back the disappeared, they can certainly help in finding truth and justice and in preventing cases from happening again. It only takes one small step to have a leap of change.

Ending impunity should both be a demand and a call for unity and action.

For the disappeared and their families, the 63rd anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights will have deeper meaning through governments’ accession to the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance and the enactment of laws criminalizing disappearances and their full implementation.

 

Signed by:

MUGIYANTO
Chairperson
MARY AILEEN DIEZ- BACALSO
Secretary-General
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[Statement] Statement on the International Human Rights Day – HRonlinePH.com

Posted on by dars0357

 

10 December, 2011

This year, we have all witnessed the transforming power o fsocial media. It has become a vehicle that stirred the ordinary people in every city across the globe to come together to claim for their rights and to effect change even in the face of violent repression.

Philippines is no exception. Social media in the country have already transcended from a mere venue for self-expression and entertainment to a source of alternative news and a platform for social connection, participation, or even political mobilization.

 

That is how HronlinePH.com came into being.

From a simple collaborative effort of individual human rights advocates to bring the different human rights advocacies online, we grew into a network of human rights activists whose shared motivation is to make human rights a reality for all. Using the available digital technology, we inform, inspire and mobilize the general public especially the underprivileged and the marginalized sectors to assert and defend their basic human rights.

 

And we will continue to perform this role.

We will keep on providing a space to show the plight of Filipino workers from the brunt ofunfair labor practices and job insecurity here and abroad. We will continue to voice the cry of farmers for genuine agrarian reforms. We will carry forward the rights of children even those who are in conflict with the law. We will never cease to expose the detrimental ecological effect of mining on land and water resources and the displacement of farming communities from their indigenous agricultural lands. We will advance the right for sexual orientation and gender identity against any forms of discrimination. We will continue to support the women’s right of choice and access to reproductive health. We will condemn at the highest level the act of torture, enforced disappearance and extrajudicial killings. We will reprove inhumane and violent demolition of informal settlers. We will stand side by side with the writers, artists, journalists in preserving the freedom of the press and expression. We will demand for a guarantee of standard of living with adequate social services free from corporate greed. We will steadfastly exercise and defend our rights offline and online.

Hence we will not leave any story untold.

We will keep every human rights issue a major topic of our blogs. We will cover our websites with news and updates on human rights situation. We will share photos and videos of actual footages that capture the reality on the ground. We will create a trend in twitter and facebook. We will swamp the chatrooms or form online fora or email groups to share and exchange information. We will be in every nook and corner of cyberspace whenever human rights are concerned.

We pose a challenge to the mainstream media, by bringing in new voices which previously had no outlet, and by putting human rights at the center of public discourse. We do not aspire to incite a revolution nor to lead one, but we intend to contribute in reshaping the texture of public opinion to get people involved in the movement for social transformation.

Today as we commemorate the International Human Rights Day 2011, we should keep in mind that human rights belong equally to each and everyone of us. It is what binds us together in a common humanity.

Because human rights are about all of us. Our lives are the message. Our views and actions are the medium.

Statement originally posted at http://hronlineph.com/2011/12/10/statement-putting-human-rights-online-moving-people-into-action/

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[Statement] Press Release: PALEA asks Tourism Congress to probe safety issues at PAL

Posted on by dars0357

Philippine Airlines Employees’ Association (PALEA) called on the delegates to probe issues of passenger safety at Philippine Airlines (PAL). Photo from airplane-pictures.net

As the two-day Tourism Congress opens in Saranggani province today, the Philippine Airlines Employees’ Association (PALEA) called on the delegates to probe issues of passenger safety at Philippine Airlines (PAL). “We ask the Tourism Congress to take up the cudgels for the riding public by inquiring about safety and service concerns at PAL given that overworked and untrained replacement workers are now servicing passengers. If the Tourism Congress is anxious about the impact of the labor dispute on the influx of tourists, then it should also be worried about any possible accidents due to unsafe work practices by contractual workers,” stated Gerry Rivera, PALEA president and vice chair of Partido ng Manggagawa.

Meanwhile PALEA welcomed the call by members of the Labor Group of the Tripartite Industrial Peace Council (TIPC) for government to push for a settlement of the labor row. “A reasonable compromise to the dispute is for both parties, PAL and PALEA, to extend judicial courtesy and wait for the final decision of the courts on the legality of the outsourcing plan. In the meantime, the lockout employees must be allowed to return to their regular jobs in order to normalize flights and operations,” Rivera expounded.

PALEA’s call on the Tourism Congress came in the wake of news reports that yesterday two Danish tourists, Rasmus Georgsen Jakobsen and Kristine Jonassen, backed out of proceeding with a PAL flight to Cebu over safety concerns. According to reports, the tourists questioned PAL’s replacement workers at the check-in counter including a supervisor about safety issues but were left unsatisfied with the answers.

 

Read full statement at http://laborpartyphilippines.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=447&Itemid=1

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[Statement] We have RAGED! (Run AGainst Enforced Disappearance)

Posted on by dars0357

Fr. Robert Reyes leads the commemoration of teh International Day of the Disappeared through I have RAGED (Run AGainst Enforced Disappearance)

CAED Statement on the Celebration of the International Day of the Disappeared
30 August 2011

We, the families of the disappeared and human rights advocates in the Philippines, gather today to commemorate the International Day of the Disappeared through our activity, Run Against Enforced Disappearance (RAGED).

We have RAGED that this day should never have been commemorated if only States around the world including all their instrumentalities had respected the human rights of their citizens.

We have RAGED that enforced disappearance is still being used as a repressive tool to stifle dissent and to silence political opposition. It is one of the cruelest forms of human rights violations. It violates practically all civil liberties and human rights including the right to life.

We have RAGED that the cases of enforced or involuntary disappearances are, by their very nature, not only difficult to investigate and prosecute, but they continue to occur while past incidences unabated and unresolved. The Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearance (FIND) has documented 2,160 victims of enforced disappearances since the dark years of Martial Law. Six victims have been reported under the present Aquino administration. Lamentably, with the absence of prosecution, impunity is the order of the day and the number of victims is doomed to multiply.

We have RAGED that existing legal measures that provide safeguards for lives and liberties have proven to be inadequate and ineffective to address this social malady. The proposed laws that seek to criminalize enforced disappearance have been filed and re-filed in the Philippine Congress in the past two decades but remain pending up to this day. Nevertheless, we laud the clear resolve of the legislature as manifested in the approval by the Senate on third and final reading of Senate Bill 2817 and the adoption by the Joint Committees of Human Rights and Justice of the House of Representatives the 14th Congress – approved House Bill 5888 as substitute bill for plenary consideration.

We have RAGED that despite efforts to address this global scourge at the national and international levels through the adoption and entry into force of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, this treaty still needs to be signed and ratified by all States to ensure universal application. To date, this international human rights instrument has 88 signatories and 29 States Parties. Unfortunately, the Philippines is not yet a signatory much less a State Party to this Convention despite its voluntary pledges and commitment submitted before the UN Human Rights Council to support the treaty.

We have RAGED that after one year in office, the Aquino administration has yet to kindle hope in those who are searching for their disappeared loved ones and seeking justice for them. Even the President’s 2nd State-of-the-Nation-Address was devoid of a clear human rights agenda.
We have RAGED by wearing plastic expressionless masks as a symbol of the indifference shown by the authorities and to depict the continuing anguish of the victims and their families.

We have RAGED by showing our firm solidarity with all families of the disappeared around the world who have to deal with the constant pain, trauma and uncertainty that hinder them from moving on and finding closure.

We have RAGED as we pledge our staunch commitment to relentlessly pursue the search for the truth, to bring individual perpetrators to justice and hold the State accountable, and to redeem the dignity of the victims and their families.

On this occasion of the International Day of the Disappeared, we have RAGED in order to pay tribute to all the desaparecidos of the world whose memory shall never ever be forgotten and whose continuing disappearance is a unifying challenge to our Coalition to remain steadfast in our search for truth and justice.

♠

COALITION AGAINST ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCE (CAED)

ASIAN FEDERATION AGAINST INVOLUNTARY DISAPPEARANCES (AFAD)
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL – PHILIPPINE SECTION (AI)
BALAY REHABILITATION CENTER (BALAY)
CENTER FOR LEGAL RIGHTS AND DEVELOPMENT (CLRD)
FAMILIES OF VICTIMS OF INVOLUNTARY DISAPPEARANCE (FIND)
KILUSAN PARA SA PAMBANSANG DEMOKRASYA (KPD)
MEDICAL ACTION GROUP (MAG)
PHILIPINE ALLIANCE OF HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCATES (PAHRA)
TASK FORCE DETAINEES OF THE PHILIPPINES (TFDP)