Buhay pa sana! Group blames activist’s death on lack of CA protection order

Karapatan on Tuesday (Sept. 1) expressed dismay that one of its members, Zara Alvarez, could still be alive had the Court of Appeals (CA) granted the protection order against the government.

“Alvarez’s untimely demise is precisely what petitioners sought to prevent by coming to court,” read the manifestation Karapatan filed before the Supreme Court (SC).

“Nevertheless, they continue to hope that the protection she was never given be extended to them — especially at a time when the promotion and defense of human rights is susceptible to being wrongfully interpreted, suppressed and punished by the State as terrorism,” it added.

Karapatan filed the manifestation while its has pending petition before the SC asking to reverse the CA ruling which denied Karapatan’s petition seeking the issuance of writs of amparo and habeas data that were supposed to protect them from harassment and information gathering from state forces.

Prior the death of Alvarez who was gunned down last Aug. 17 while walking home in Bacolod City, Karapatan recounted that she has been “red-tagged by the military and police because of her human rights work.”

“In June last year, Alvarez executed her Judicial Affidavit in the instant case, where she recounted that she started to receive death threats from unknown members prior to her illegal arrest on October 30, 2012 for a trumped-up murder charge,” it said.

Karapatan said Alvarez was “supposed to shed light on the relentless red-tagging and terroristlabelling that she and her fellow human rights defenders based in Negros Island have experienced.”

“As a volunteer of Northern Negros Alliance of Human Rights Advocates (NNAHRA), a member organization of Karapatan-Negros, and former campaign and education director of Karapatan-Negros, Alvarez could have been given protection by the privilege of amparo and habeas data, had the same been granted by the Court a quo,” the group said.

“It is too late now,” it lamented

The post Buhay pa sana! Group blames activist’s death on lack of CA protection order first appeared on Latest Philippine politics news today.

Source: Latest Politics News Today (Politics.com.ph)