‘I’m being treated worst than a convict’

TARLAC CITY — Self-exiled communist leader Jose Ma. Sison has accused the Dutch government of treating him "worst than a convicted criminal" after he was ordered out of a government-funded apartment in Utrecht in the Netherlands.

In a statement sent via e-mail to The STAR yesterday, Sison said the Utrecht municipal government has suspended all social benefits being accorded him as a "political refugee" in the Netherlands for the past 14 years, after the US government declared the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) a terrorist organization.

"Nowhere in the world, not even in the Philippines, is there any formal charge of common crime or political crime against me," Sison, CPP founding chairman, said in a letter to Utrecht’s Sociale Zaken en Verkgelegenheid (Social Affairs and Welfare) office.

Sison said the Dutch government has also frozen his joint current account with his wife, Juliet de Lima, at the Postbank in Utrecht.

"All the money that goes in and out of the joint bank account is quite small (and) originates from (the Netherlands’) social welfare agencies and is used for bare subsistence," he said.

"It is utterly inane and ridiculous to claim that such money has anything to do with terrorism. It is unjust and cruel to use such false claim in order to deprive me of the basic necessities of life and thus, violate my basic human right to life," he added.

The United States has demanded that other foreign governments, particularly in Europe, freeze suspected CPP assets within their jurisdictions.

Sison said he and his family will now face the humiliation of being accused of fraud for failure to pay for the goods and services that have been delivered to them.

"It is clear that we have been living in poverty, contrary to the malicious claims of our detractors in the Philippines that we live in luxury in the Netherlands," he said.

But Sison said he would not beg the Dutch government to restore his social benefits. "I would rather assert my basic human right to life," he said.