Philippines Canada Task Force on Human Rights
Press Release

Filipinos across Canada to rally for human rights in the Philippines tomorrow

July 5, 2007

Concerned Filipino-Canadians and their supporters will rally in three major cities across Canada tomorrow, Friday, July 6, 2007 to call for a stop to state-sponsored terrorism in the Philippines and an end to Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s “dirty war” against opposition to her regime.  Protesters will also call on the Canadian government to stop aid to the Arroyo regime. 

Organizations under the Philippines-Canada Task Force on Human Rights will rally and hold various information drives in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver as part of the Canadian National Day of Action for Human Rights in the Philippines. 

In Toronto, protesters will hand out information leaflets at 11:00 a.m. outside the offices of the Philippine Embassy at 161 Eglinton Ave. and again at 5:00 p.m. at St. Jamestown. 

In Montreal, protesters will hand out information leaflets at 5:00 p.m at the Metro Cote St. Catherine station. 

In Vancouver, protesters will rally from 4:00 – 7:00 p.m. outside the downtown offices of the Philippine Consul General at: 700 West Pender Street (at Granville). The action will feature speakers, street theatre and candle lighting to pay tribute to the victims of state-sponsored terrorism in the Philippines. 

The national day of action is in build up to the July 15 expected implementation of the Human Security Act, the Philippine’s anti-terrorism law which protesters say will only worsen the gross and systematic violation of human rights in the country. 

Since Arroyo came to power in 2001, the human rights group Karapatan has documented 869 extra-judicial killings, 180 enforced disappearances and thousands more forcibly displaced by increasing militarization of communities. Protesters say this campaign of state terror is under the framework of the U.S.-led imperialist “war on terror” and the Arroyo regime’s counter-insurgency program, Oplan Bantay Laya (Operation Freedom Watch). 

The Permanent People’s Tribunal held earlier this year in the Netherlands condemned both Arroyo and U.S. President George W. Bush and their respective governments responsible for gross and systematic violations of human rights, economic plunder and transgression of the Filipino people’s sovereignty. Other international bodies such as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions and Amnesty International have also condemned the political killings in the Philippines.

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