A total of 103 civil society, religious organizations and concerned individuals signed a joint open letter on 7 June addressed to the Philippine Supreme Court and Department of Justice, expressing “profound and urgent concern on the recent extrajudicial killings, judicial harassment, arbitrary arrests and detention and threats through red-tagging against human rights defenders, human rights lawyers, trade unionists and public sector unions, and organizers of community pantries in the Philippines.”
The open letter enumerated grievous human rights offenses, including the killings of trade union leaders Emmanuel Asuncion and Dandy Miguel, fisher leaders Ana Mari and Ariel Evangelista, urban poor activists Melvin Dasigao and Mark Bakasno, and indigenous farmers Abner and Edward Esto and Puroy and Randy dela Cruz in March 2020.
The group condemned the arrest of Karapatan human rights alliance Chairperson Elisa Lubi and the judicial harassment of other Karapatan officers. In a similar situation are Windel Bolinget, Jong Monzon, United Church of Christ in the Philippines Bishop Hamuel Tequis and Lindy Panucho.
These are just the latest in the alarming and ongoing pattern of criminalization and violence against human rights defenders in the Philippines, the group stressed.
Aside from Philippine human rights groups, signatories to the open letter included the Asian Human Rights Commission, Center for Constitutional Governance (Uganda), Center for International Human Rights of the City University of New York, CIVICUS, FIDH, Front Line Defenders, International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute, International Coalition Against Enforced Disappearances, International Service for Human Rights, KAIROS: Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives, Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada, Legal Resources Centre (Moldova), United Church of Canada and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT).
The group appealed to the Supreme Court and Department of Justice to stop the killings, arbitrary arrest and detention, judicial harassment, threats and red-tagging against human rights defenders in the Philippines. They called on the prompt, thorough, independent and impartial investigations into the various offenses, insisting that “those responsible must be held accountable.”
They also called for a review of the rules in serving search warrants, noting that these “appear to be routinely used to judicially harass and arbitrarily detain” human rights defenders.
The group said that the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 should be repealed. They also said that measures should be enacted to protect the defenders and to criminalize red-tagging.