Media Releases

Karapatan denounces the arrest of Rodolfo Salas, an organizer of farmers and cooperatives in Pampanga since 1992, on February 18, 2020 in Pampanga on trumped-up multiple murder charges filed at the Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 32.

“The recent pull-out of a movie referencing Duterte’s sham drug war and rights violations in a film festival and the suspension of the Twitter account for a musical production that shows the struggles during the Marcos martial law period are the most recent examples of the challenges faced by artists and freedom of expression advocates under the Duterte administration.

Karapatan stands in solidarity with the Filipino people today in commemorating the 34th anniversary of the EDSA People Power uprising. Today, we remember the thousands of victims of the brutal Marcos dictatorship under martial law along with the long struggle of the people's martyrs for national democracy, genuine justice, and social change. This momentous event in our history displayed the power of the unity of the Filipino people that ultimately led to the ouster of the fascist dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
 

Human rights alliance Karapatan cried foul over the so-called protest staged by groups affiliated with the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) at the Quezon City Hall of Justice on Thursday, February 20, 2020, as former Rural Missionaries of the Philippines (RMP) National Director Sister Elenita Belardo, RGS attended the arraignment proceedings of the trumped-up perjury charge filed against her by National Security Adviser and NTF-ELCAC Vice Chairman Hermogenes Esperon, Jr. The rights group slammed the protest as a "desperate attempt" to malign and harass the 80-year old nun.

In a press conference and meeting at the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) today, February 12, 2020, Defend Mindanao, a newly-formed campaign network in defense of Mindanao human rights defenders and development workers facing judicial harassment, appealed to CHR Chairperson Chito Gascon and members of the commission to immediately investigate and facilitate remedies for the embattled activists.

In the wake of the quo warranto petition filed by the Office of the Solicitor General seeking to forfeit the legislative franchise of broadcasting network ABS-CBN, human rights alliance Karapatan tagged Solicitor General Jose Calida as “a pathetic lapdog to the whims of Duterte’s political vendetta” and slammed Calida’s petition as “a direct assault on press freedom, human rights, and democracy in the country.”

In a press conference in Quezon City today, human rights group Karapatan questioned the integrity and independence of Judge Eligio Petilla of the Regional Trial Court Branch 44 in Tacloban City, who issued the search warrants effecting the highly questionable search and arrests of five human rights defenders last February 7, 2020.

Karapatan denounces the arrest of our National Council member for Eastern Visayas Alexander Philip Abinguna along with four other human rights defenders, in the course of Gestapo-like police raids of our chapter’s office in Tacloban City and that of other people’s organizations.