Int'l Jurors Blast Dutch Govt on Seizure of PPT Materials

Int'l jurors blast Dutch govt on seizure of PPT materials

Antonio Tujan, Jr. of IBON Foundation

By LOUI GALICIA
ABS-CBN Europe News Bureau


International jurors blasted the Dutch government for confiscating documents of the Permanent People’s Tribunal’s (PPT) Second Session On The Philippines’, reported ABS-CBN Europe News Bureau.

"Shame on the Dutch government," stressed former Norwegian Ambassador and lawyer Oystein Tveter in a press release sent by PPT’s International Coordinating Secretariat to ABS-CBN.

Tveter was referring to the August 28 arrest of Communist Party of the Philippines founding chairman Jose Maria Sison by Dutch police, and the simultaneous raids on the office of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines and six homes of Filipino political refugees living in the Netherlands.


Atty. Bernard Tomlow of the Netherlands and Former Norweigian ambassador Oystein Tveter
The raids resulted in the confiscation by Dutch police of voluminous documents.

Materials belonging to the PPT as well as a desktop computer and laptop were taken by the police from the house of political refugee Boyen Baleva and his wife Dr. Angie Gonzales who is PPT's secretariat coordinator.

"The PPT jurors never thought that they would also hold the Dutch government responsible for the harassment (of Filipino militants) and the abuse of fundamental rights (of the Filipino people)," Tveter said in the release.

Tveter was one of six jurors during the PPT’s session in March this year in the Hague which declared the Arroyo administration, along with that of U.S. President George W. Bush "and their accomplices" guilty of gross violations of human rights, economic and social rights and transgression of the national sovereignty of the Filipino people.

PPT officials and observers fear that information gathered from these materials will be used against witnesses who testified against the Manila and U.S. governments.


PPT Secretary General Gianni Tognoni of Italy signs “Repression and Resistance” book
Dutch Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin has already admitted that such information can be shared to any foreign government if it will serve the interests of his government, the release said.

Tveter and two other PPT jurors Professor Ties Prakken of the Netherlands and PPT Secretary General Gianni Tognoni of Italy were in Amsterdam on Nov. 3, for the launching of the book "Repression and Resistance", which documents the entire proceedings of the PPT’s Second Session on the Philippines and the verdict on the violations of civil, political and economic rights in the Philippines.

At the book launch, Prakken, who is a law expert, also denounced Sison’s continued persecution in the Netherlands and said that the decision of the Dutch Court of Appeals to free Sison clearly sends a message to the Dutch prosecutors to drop the case.

The release said that Prakken finds it very unfortunate that Sison is being criminalized in the Netherlands on the basis of evidence which are not even acceptable to the Philippine Supreme Court.

At the book launch, Tognoni paid tribute to well-known Japanese novelist and social activist Oda Makoto, one of PPT’s founders and jurors, who passed away on July 30.


Atty. Bernard Tomlow of the Netherlands, Tvetter, Tognoni and Prakken at the launch of “Repression and Resistance” book
He read passages from Oda's books and echoed his call "to amplify the situation in the Philippines", the release said.

During the delivery of the PPT verdict, Oda deeply apologized to the Filipinos for not knowing what has been happening in the Philippines since he sat on the jury that tried the Marcos government in 1980.

In the press release, Tognoni said, "the verdict of the Tribunal represent the resistance of the powerless".

Filipino migrants as well as representatives of Philippine solidarity associations also attended the book launching.

According to Gonzales, the book will also be promoted in several other cities in Europe and in the U.S., Canada and the Asia-Pacific, to drum up further support for the campaign to stop rights violations by the Arroyo and Bush governments.

SOURCE: WWW.ABS-CBNNEWS.COM

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=98282