US rights lawyer barred from entering RP ahead of Asean summit

Immigration officers at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) banned an American human rights lawyer from entering the country ahead of next week’s summit of Southeast Asian leaders, officials said yesterday.

Immigration Commissioner Alipio Fernandez said Brian Patrick Campbell, 31, lawyer of the International Labor Rights Fund (ILRF), was put on the next flight back to Hong Kong due to his inclusion in the immigration blacklist.

One immigration official who did not want to be identified confirmed the existence of the blacklist but could not give details. "All I can tell you is that the American has been involved in human rights activities in China."

Campbell, who wanted to attend a "jobs and justice" conference organized by activists on the sidelines of the summit, arrived at the NAIA on board a Cathay Pacific Airways flight from the United States via Hong Kong.

Fernandez said Campbell was included in the blacklist pursuant to a request by the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA).

Airport sources said Campbell was believed to be on his way to Cebu when he arrived Wednesday night, in time for Cebu’s hosting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Leaders’ Summit next week.

Campbell’s hosts denounced his deportation.

"We are deeply disappointed that the Philippine government, while supposedly promoting the vision of a caring and sharing community in the ASEAN, would deny a foreign delegate entry to our country just because he is deemed to have views that are different from the agenda in the ASEAN summit," said Theresa Lauron, general secretary of the Asia Pacific Research Network, which invited Campbell.

Campbell, a labor rights lawyer, said he was not informed of the reason for his deportation. He has since told his hosts he saw a government blacklist of "other names of human rights attorneys who have also been barred entry," the group’s statement said. — With AFP