JAPAN: Japanese activists hold candle-light protest against visiting Philippine President Arroyo's human rights record

Activists hold a candle-light protest in front of the Philippine Embassy in Japan urging visiting President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to do more to halt political killings in the Philippines. Japan-based human rights groups gathered for a candle light protest in front of the Philippines embassy in Tokyo (May 22) to protest the hundreds of political killings suspected to be carried out in the Philippines and demanded that the perpetrators be punished. Offering flowers and putting up pictures of the many victims of suspected political killings, the protesters called on Japan to push visiting Philippine Gloria Macapagal Arroyo on human rights issues. "She has the highest record of killed opponents against her policy. And one of the most important thing we want the Japanese public to know is that this government should not be receiving official development assistance which is coming from the tax payers of the japanese people," said Cesar Santoyo, Mission Director, Centre for Japanese-Filipino Families. The groups, including Amnesty International Japan and Human Rights Now, and handed over to the embassy a petition letter to Arroyo, in which they urged the Philippine armed forces and national police ''to immediately stop using the policy of targeting civilian organizations and individual activists.'' Arroyo also acts as commander-in-chief of the Philippine armed forces. The gathering in Tokyo came at the start of Arroyo's four-day trip to Japan from Tuesday (and was also simultaneously held in the cities of Nagoya and Osaka. Japanese supporters, some of them students who had once lived in the Philippines such as Yuki Hashimoto, said they had been shocked to hear of the extrajudicial killings in the Philippines. "At first I didn't believe it, because I didn't think a President would kill other people for political reasons just so she could get more power. But I think a lot of times in developing countries there are a lot of problems with democracy and there is a lot that needs to be done so that we can achieve more human rights and a real democracy," Hashimoto told Reuters after attending the vigil. More than 800 people, most of them left-wing activists but also journalists, have been murdered or reported missing over the past six years and a U.N. investigator said in February that the military appeared to be responsible for many of the killings. Manila has promised to prosecute those responsible but no one has been arrested and the murders continue. Government supporters say those gunned down are communist rebels but critics say authorities are removing left-wing opponents ahead of elections. Amnesty International in a 2006 report has called on the Philippines government and President Arroyo in particular to put a stop to the political killings and, among other things, clean up its police and judicial system in order to ensure that the killings are properly, impartially and effectively investigated and the perpetrators brought to justice. UH

ITN Source | May 23, 2007

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