World's lawmakers seek freedom for Ocampo, Beltran; IPU probe team due April 18-21

MANILA – Thirty-seven legislators from across the world have joined
the growing clamor for the release of detained Bayan Muna Rep. Satur
Ocampo and Anakpawis Rep. Crispin Beltran.

Expressing support for the release of Ocampo and Beltran were four
senators (4) – Senator Sharon Carstairs of Canada, Senator Gavin
Marshall of Australia, British House of Lords Member David Alton, and
Senator Pierre Galand of Belgium – and thirty-three (33) Members of
Parliament (MP) from various countries.

Carstairs is the vice president of the committee on human rights of
parliamentarians of the Geneva-based Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU),
a worldwide organization of parliaments and legislatures

The IPU has decided to send a high-level team to Manila on April 18 to
21, or two weeks earlier than scheduled, to look into the plight of
Ocampo and Beltran. The IPU team will be led by the group's
secretary-general Anders Johnsson and Senator Carstairs ahead of the
IPU's general assembly in Bali, Indonesia, which will take up the
pending case of political persecution leveled against the Arroyo
government by the partylist representatives of Bayan Muna, Anakpawis,
and Gabriela.

Bayan Muna made the announcement as the nation waits for the Supreme
Court's ruling on Ocampo's petition for temporary liberty, which is
due on Tuesday (April 3).

The MPs who have joined the bandwagon seeking liberty for the two
activist solons include:

Marc Tarabella, member of the European Parliament representing Belgium;

Twenty-three MPs of Switzerland: Liliane Maury Pasquier , Maria
Roth-Bernasconi, Andre Daguet, Carlo Sommaruga, Didier Berberat, Fabio
Pedrina, Franco Cavalli, Franziska Teuscher, Géraldine Savary, Hans
Widmer, Jacqueline Fehr, Jean-Noél Rey, Liliane Pasquier Maury,
Margret Kiener Nellen, Marlyse Dormond Béguelin, Pierre Salvi, Roger
Nordmann, Ruth-Gaby Vermot-Mangold, Stéphane Rossini, Susanne
Leutenegger Oberholzer, Ursula Wyss, Valérie Garbani, and Vreni
Hubmann;

MP David Geerts of the Federal Parliament of Belgium; MP Rune Lund of
Denmark; MP Son Chhay of Cambodia; Legislator Leung Kwok-hung of the
Hong Kong Legislative Council; and

Six MPs of the Regional Parliament of Flanders, Belgium: Rudi Daems,
Vera Dua, Eloi Glorieux, Jos Stassen, Jef Tavernier, and Mieke Vogels
"All eyes are on the Arroyo government's persecution of Ka Satur and
Ka Bel who have since been detained on the basis of fabricated charges
and the denial of their rights to due process," said Bayan Muna Rep.
Teddy Casino.

Casino says the "the growing concern for Ka Satur and Ka Bel by the
world's parliamentarians only heightens the lack of concern of House
Speaker Jose de Venecia, who has not lifted a finger to defend two
Members of Congress from brazen political persecution."

"It is a fact that only military dictatorships, martial law regimes,
and military juntas are notorious for falsely charging and imprisoning
democratically-elected legislators, as in the case of Burma today and
the Philippines in 1972," said Casino. "This is not lost on
parliamentarians worldwide. The IPU, in fact, has called the attacks
on the Batasan 6 as 'attacks on the Philippine Congress itself' and
has consequently sought an end to the filing of trump charges.". ###

Reference:
Rep. Teddy Casino
0920-9035683