Statement - Rights group to quash army harassment case

The human rights alliance KARAPATAN-Central Visayas vows to quash the "harassment cases" filed by the AFP-Central Command against human rights field workers in Cebu.

The group said it would frustrate military efforts at using the trumped up charges to justify escalation of attacks against human rights advocates and other government critics in the province. 2Lt. Chris Mendoza of the 78th IB personally filed the complaints for murder against KARAPATAN-Cebu staff Vimarie Arcilla, Jigs Avila, and Emmylou Cruz, among others, after KARAPATAN earlier hauled the army unit to court for the attempt on the lives of Emmylou and her husband Daniel.

In what KARAPATAN tagged as a twisted black propaganda stunt, the army complaint accused the human rights workers of being NPAs involved in armed clashes that killed six soldiers in Tuburan and Tabuelan towns since October last year.

The charges are sham. They are based on hearsay. They are politically-motivated to terrorize us from further exposing the intensifying human rights violations of the notorious 78th IB and from protesting the growing tyrannical rule of the US-Arroyo Regime.

The trumped-up charges are part of the Malacañang's campaign of political persecution of critics supervised by the president's Inter-Agency Legal Action Group.

We will not be cowed and will continue to defend people's rights in the face of a virtual military rule in the country.

Atty. Pooch Cinco
Chairperson
KARAPATAN-Cebu