IADL President Jeanne Mirer said the attacks on Filipino lawyers are in violation of international law including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, the UN Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers, the Convention against Torture and even of the Fourth Geneva Convention and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, among others.
UN Special Rapporteur Agnes Callamard urged UN member States to “apply sanctions against Filipino officials who have committed, who have incited, or who have failed to investigate or prevent human rights violations including arbitrary killings.”
The International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL) supports the case filed with the International Criminal Court (ICC) against President Rodrigo Duterte and the UN Human Rights Council resolution seeking to investigate the human rights situation in the Philippines. It vowed to support the filing of other suits against Duterte “for violations of international human rights law.”
The IADL said that the military’s red tagging of NUPL contradicts Article 16 of the Basic Principles, which mandates governments to ensure that lawyers are able to perform all of their professional functions “without intimidation, hindrance, harassment or improper interference.”
“Even more outstandingly ironic is that we as international lawyers made time to see things firsthand on the reported attacks on our peers and brethren out of genuine concern and who in good faith humbly put forward concrete recommendations for consideration by the authorities are ourselves the object of attack.”
“The more serious the crime, the less serious the investigation.”
“They were given two years to present their witnesses. But they failed.. I wonder where they are going to get their witnesses now.” – Mrs. Concepcion Empeño
By RONALYN V. OLEA
After President Benigno S. Aquino III granted amnesty to rebel soldiers, relatives and supporters pressed anew for the release of the Morong 43 and other political prisoners in the Philippines.
By RONALYN V. OLEA
“Governments are only instruments. The peoples must exercise their power. The peoples are masters of international society. Law is a struggle of the peoples.” — Roland Weyl, IADL first vice president and dean of the Paris Bar Association
By RONALYN V. OLEA
“It’s amazing to see how strong you are despite everything that had happened to you…It’s fantastic. I am moved and it has given me more encouragement to take your case,” Michael Gooding, a lawyer from United Kingdom, told the Morong 43.
NEWS RELEASE 20 September 2010 As PRES. Benigno Simeon Aquino III flies off to the United States on official visit, the alliance of human rights groups in the Philippines, KARAPATAN, questioned the $434-million USD compact grant by the Millenium Challenge Corporation (MCC) of the US as a “violation of its own selection criteria” and “encourages…