uphold, assert and defend all human rights for all!
uphold, assert and defend all human rights for all!
International lawyers and human rights experts are studying the possibility of filing criminal and administrative charges against Governor Abdusakur Tan of the Province of Sulu for declaring the entire province and its people in a State of Emergency since March 31, 2009. “He must be held accountable for knowingly and wilfully doing an illegal act that caused a string of human rights violations towards the people of Sulu. It is not enough that the Supreme Court has already declared the State of Emergency as illegal and null and void. The governor must be held accountable for each count of illegal arrest, arbitrary detention, unlawful search and seizure committed during the State of Emergency”, Max de Mesa, Chairperson of the Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocate (PAHRA), said during a Roundtable Discussion on “Private Armies and Warlordism” last August 23, 2012 at the Commission on Human Rights Office in Quezon City.
Paris, The Hague, 13 August 2012 - The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and its member organisations in the Democratic Republic of Congo – the Association africaine des droits de l’Homme (ASADHO), the Groupe Lotus and the Ligue des électeurs – welcome the first historic decision on reparation taken by the Trial Chamber I of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and made public on 7 August 2012. This decision defines for the first time the principles of reparation for victims of crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court in the case against Thomas Lubanga who, on 14 March 2012, was found guilty of war crimes, for enlisting, conscripting and using child soldiers.
“This decision acknowledges all the victims of Thomas Lubanga’s crimes, and enshrines their right to reparation. This decision, the first to be rendered by an international criminal jurisdiction, consolidates the right to reparation, in a broad sense, for victims of human rights violations, and enroots the key principle of the Rome system that places victims at the heart of international justice proceedings” stated Paulina Vega, FIDH Vice President and expert on reparation issues.
...when we show a judge that is corrupt,
And will give up his sentence as he favours
The person, not the cause; saving the guilty
If of his faction, and as oft condemning
The innocent out of particular spleen;
...censure us, or free us with applause.
Philip Massinger.The Roman Actor
Act I, Scene 3; l.39ff
Another death has exposed the adamant existence of hazing as an endemic disease embedded in a fraternity, an otherwise inherently good institution established to nurture a sense of belonging.
The Mindanao Peoples Caucus calls on all peace loving peoples of Mindanao and the entire country to close ranks and unite behind the earnest efforts of the Philippine Government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) to put a final closure to the armed conflict in Mindanao by signing a peace agreement at the soonest possible time.
More than a thousand families are once again displaced from their homes and villages as a result of the armed conflict between the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) in Sharif Aguak, Talayan, Datu Saudi and Datu Unsay in the province of Maguindanao on August 5, 2012.
