Amnesty International barred from seeing political detainee

We, in KARAPATAN-Central Visayas, are disgusted over the rude treatment of international human rights observers at the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center this afternoon.

Members of the London-based Amnesty Internationale were at the said jail to visit political prisoner and peace-advocate Ramon Patriarca, when they were barred at the gate by agency-hired security guards.

KARAPATAN LASHES AT IRREGULAR TRANSFER OF POLITICAL PRISONER

We, in the premier human rights alliance KARAPATAN, protest the surreptitious transfer of NDF peace consultant Ramon Patriarca from detention in Danao City Jail to a non-regular military stockade inside the AFP-Central Command in Camp Lapu-Lapu, Lahug, Cebu City yesterday afternoon.

The covert operation was highly irregular and smacks of Gestapo antics in snatching hapless victims to safe houses.  It can not be justified by a questionable court order supposedly concocted amidst the Christmas revelries last month but was only mailed to Patriarca’s counsel a day before he was taken to camp.

UPHOLD HUMAN RIGHTS! FREE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS

An open letter to Philippine President Noynoy Aquino
on the 63rd International Human Rights Day

MR. PRESIDENT,

We, political prisoners in Central Visayas, join our 365 other compatriots in various detention centers across the country in launching a hunger strike to underscore our just demand to an end to the policy of political persecution and for the release of all political prisoners.

rights defenders frustrate anew another trumped up charge

We, in the premier human rights alliance KARAPATAN-Central Visayas, hail a recent victory over the forces of state terror with the dismissal of yet another harassment case orchestrated by the AFP-Central Command through its 79^th Infantry Batallion in Negros Oriental against human rights activists.