CCTA to Sue
Arroyo for Poll Fraud before UN Human Rights Body
BY
BULATLAT
Posted 2:55 p.m. May
10, 2006
The Citizens’
Congress for Truth and Accountability (CCTA) will file electoral fraud
charges against President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo before the United
Nations (UN) International Human Rights Committee under the Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights, Neri Javier Colmenares, one of the group’s
lawyers-presentors, told media earlier today.
The CCTA, in its
report presented this morning at the Club Filipino, found Arroyo guilty
of electoral fraud among other offenses including corruption, betrayal
of public trust, and culpable violation of the Constitution.
Among the charges
against Arroyo were inaction to political killings perpetrated by state
forces, diversion of funds, engaging in questionable contracts like the
Venable deal and the NorthRail project.
The report said
that Arroyo “deliberately cheated” her way to victory in the 2004
presidential election.
“The cheating was a
violation of civil and political rights,” said former Vice President
Teofisto Guingona Jr., chairman of the CCTA Presidium. Guingona said
that the contents of the 203-page report are serious enough to be used
as bases for filing a case before the UN rights body.
The CCTA was
initiated by non-government and people’s organizations and opposition
parties in 2005 after impeachment complaints against Arroyo were
dismissed at the House of Representatives.
Colmenares, who is
also the spokesperson of the broad-based Counsels for the Defense of
Liberties (CODAL), said that the CCTA will be filing the charges
together with individual petitioners. He added that they will gather as
many petitioners as possible.
“In electoral fraud
we are all injured parties,” Colmenares said. “So anyone can be a
petitioner in this case.”
Guingona also said
that the results of the CCTA proceedings can be used as support
documents for the second impeachment complaint against Arroyo.
Bulatlat
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