Philippines: Congress should block effort to reintroduce death penalty

5 December 2016

We, the undersigned organizations and individuals, express serious concern over the rapid efforts by members of the House of Representatives of the Philippines to adopt a bill restoring the death penalty in the country.  

On 29 November 2016, the Sub-Committee on Judicial Reforms of the House Committee on Justice, which is chaired by Congressman Marcelino “Ching” Veloso, approved a bill restoring the death penalty in the Philippines by railroading the proceedings in the committee and ignoring important questions from other lawmakers questioning the need for the legislation or its urgent passage.

Official congratulatory letter from BFW for the 2016 ASIA DEMOCRACY AND HUMAN RIGHTS AWARD (ADHRA)

AFAD: AFTER SECOND QUASHMENT OF COMPLAINTS, RELEASE KHURRAM PARVEZ NOW!

Khurram Parvez, chairperson of the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD), was ordered to be released by the Jammu and Kashmir High Court on Friday, November 25. Parvez has been in detention under the Preventive Detention clause of the Public Safety Act of 1978 for more than two months. The ruling came after said Court gave the Indian government several chances to provide substantiating evidence for their complaint against Parvez, but to no avail. The Court ruled that the detention was “illegal” due to its continued failure to clarify the basis for the allegations against Parvez. Similarly, the Court declared that the “detaining authority has abused its powers.”

AFAD strongly condemns the recent actions of the Philippine government in relation to the burial of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos

18 November 2016 


The Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD) strongly condemns the recent actions of the Philippine government in relation to the burial of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

We condemn the decision of the Supreme Court, through the nine concurring justices, to allow the burial of Marcos. This burial is in direct contradiction to the demand of the victims of martial law to bury Marcos in Batac, one of the conditions that the Marcos family agreed to in exchange for their return to the country. We assert that justice must be, first and foremost, defined by the victims themselves. By disregarding the demand of the victims, the Supreme Court has become complicit to yet another act of injustice.