Letter to Mary Robinson
February 20, 2001
Mrs. Mary Robinson
High Commissioner for Human Rights
Palais Wilson, CH 1211 Geneva 10
Tel: 41 22 917 92 40
Fax: 41 22 917 90 12
Dear High Commissioner Mary Robinson,
The UN Paris Declaration of 1998 defending the Rights of Human Right defenders is a most important declaration and of great importance too many thousands of Human Rights Advocates through out the world.
Article 12.2 of this Declaration states the following:
UN Declaration (1998)
Rights of Human Rights Defenders to be Freed from Harassment
The Defenders of "Human Rights Defenders" Geneva, Switzerland, calls attention of the Philippine Government that the rights of Preda workers be respected as human rights workers with a 26-year track record defending Human Rights.
The Philippine Government under the International Charter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Declaration of the 1998 to which it is signatory is obliged to protect the human rights workers.
In the case of Father Shay Cullen and human rights workers at the Preda Foundation which have established a 26-year record of human rights work are protected under the Universal rights of "Defenders of Human Rights" as set out in the declaration that all governments have the international obligation :
"To promote and to strive for the protection and realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms at the national and international levels".
The state has the obligation to ensure the implementation of the provisions of the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 9, 1998 - (Declaration concerning the rights and responsibilities of individuals, groups and institutions to promote and protect universally recognized human rights and fundamental liberties) in particular its :
Article 1 which states that :
"Everyone has the right, individually and in association with others, to promote and to strive for the protection and realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms at the national and international levels".
UN DECLARATION of the Rights of HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS
Article 12.2 which provides that :
"The State shall take all necessary measures to ensure the protection by the competent authorities of everyone, individually and in association with others, against any violence, threats, retaliation, de facto or de jure adverse discrimination, pressure or any other arbitrary action as a consequence of his or her legitimate exercise of the rights referred to in the present Declaration".
Under these declarations to which the Philippines is a signatory the state will :
"guarantee the effective respect of fundamental rights and liberties in accordance with the provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the international and regional Pacts and Covenants ratified by the Philippines".
Defenders of Human Rights Defenders, Geneve, Switzerland.
What are lacking in many countries and in particular the Philippines, are legal measures to implement the declaration, even though this country is a signatory to the Declaration.
The Preda Foundation, Nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize 2001, recipient of the City of Weimar Human Rights Award, and the Italian City of Ferrara Human Rights Award, is actively working to find ways to implement the UN Declaration of Paris 1998. In coordination with other Human Rights Organizations, we are embarking on a campaign to persuade the newly installed Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to find effective means to implement the Declaration. While we are studying and researching ways and means by which the declaration can be implemented in total, immediate relief possible from harassment de jure. The Philippine Department of Justice can, through a Presidential Executive Order, appoint a Special State Prosecutor of integrity to examine formal accusations brought against Human Rights Defenders in accordance with existing laws.
Many cases of harassment and intimidation of Human Rights Defenders occur because of provincial or city prosecutors themselves being threatened, influenced and manipulated by those violating human rights. One normal response would be to turn to the Philippine Commission on Human Rights. However in some areas in the Philippines, Commission on Human Rights investigators are also subject to threats and intimidation. A few cans be influenced and swayed by persuasive and powerful personalities to act in a manner that tends to jeopardize Human Rights rather than protect them.
The Preda Foundation has been active in advocating and defending the Human Rights of women and children and street youth from sexual enslavement, torture and summary executions for many years. Preda began in 1974 during the martial law regime but the levels of human rights violations, especially those of children, are increasing at an alarmingly high rate today.
As a result of the work defending the rights of sexually exploited and trafficked children and youth, those tortured and executed, Human Rights Defenders at the Preda Center have been the target of sixty-one (61) judicial complaints in a period of two and a half years. Suspects or their relatives who have been brought to justice for child abuse and exploitation have made these. The charts of the complaints enclosed are seen to come mostly from one group of Pedophile protectors.
Fifty-three (53) of these complaints have been resolved by the investigating prosecutor or a judge exonerating the Preda Human Rights workers. It is clear that the complaints were baseless and unsubstantiated and thus constituted by volume and lack of merit, harassment and a violation of the UN Declaration. We are still battling the remaining cases.
Example 1.
Harassment de jure. Commission on Human Rights investigators involved.
One of the major charges brought against Preda Human Rights Defenders were based on fabricated evidence as shown by the dismissal of the charges for the third time. The case concerns the complaints of a sexually abused 7- year old child that accused two teen boys that lived in the same house. After she accused them to her teachers and the police, medical evidence was taken at a hospital that showed abrasions. No action resulted as her father blocked a formal complaint against the two boys. One is his adopted son, the other a houseboy, brother of a minor whom the American was courting.
After three months and ten days of continuous sexual abuse the then 7-year
old child complained to Preda childcare workers who immediately had her rescued
by police and brought into protective custody. The Preda Director initiated
legal charges against the two suspects. The child's right to protection against
her abusers, a right to legal representation and to be heard was violated.
One boy confessed to the abuse and the child was consistent in her testimony
against the two over a one year period while in the Preda Center and after being
transferred to the care of the Government facility. The judge released the child
into the influence and control of the abusers. The police filed charges against
the two abusers. It was the same lawyer who represented both the child and her
abusers during the preliminary hearing. The case was dismissed because her
father did not bring her to the hearing.
Criminal suspect behind false charges.
Mr. Hartmut "Harry" Joost operator of a bar on Baloy Beach, Olongapo City against whom the Preda Director and staff and the Special Prosecutor had filed charges for Obstruction of Justice, invited the Commission on Human Rights, Regional Office, San Fernando, Pampanga, to send investigators to help gather evidence in the case. Two investigators were assigned but astoundingly they were not to gather evidence against the two boys but against the director of Preda who was pressing for the reopening of the case against the two boys.
The investigators worked with Joost and Alan Edmonds the US retired Serviceman and non-biological father of the then 7- year old child. The CHR investigators ignored the evidence on record against the two boys and instead looked for evidence that could be used to incriminate the Preda director. The investigators failed to note that the bar owner Hartmut "Harry" Joost, German National, was not above question in his motives. He has been formally ordered to be charged by the Bureau of Immigration and Deportation with giving false testimony, constituting moral turpitude, being an undocumented and overstaying undesirable alien. He is on trial in Olongapo City already for Obstruction of Justice and Theft. (Enclosed resolution)
No consultations with Preda.
Yet the CHR investigators, who claim to be impartial and without bias, gathered, so called "evidence" for eight months but did not once visit or consult with anyone from the Preda Center. Nor did they attempt to get the side of the one being investigated to verify information given by Joost and Edmonds in the case.
7- year old pressured to contradict herself.
The child was under their power for eight months and one day was brought to the
bar of Joost. She was pressured by Joost, her non-biological father and an
Australian, who showed up to "relax" her and persuade her to write a letter
incriminating the Preda director for rape. The very same one who had brought the
charges against the teenagers and fought for her rights. The letter effectively
reversed her long-standing testimony against the two teenagers. To this day she
is still in the power of her abusers. This fabricated evidence was then used to
file rape charges against the Preda Foundation's Director and generate bad
publicity.
The report of Attorney Yumol.
An eight-page report of their findings dated May 26,1998, describing all of this, was made by Attorney Tomas B. Yumol, Jr. Head of the San Fernando Office of the CHR to Commissioner Jorge R. Coquia. It ignored the preponderance of evidence against the two boys and pointed an accusing finger at the Preda Director. The accused was given no information that such an investigation was made, he was not asked to submit his side, present information or documents, and was never given a copy of the report by the CHR and was thus denied a right to reply and due process.
The report to the Human Rights Commissioner is full of untruths and falsehoods. A complete analysis is attached. Attorney Tomas B. Yumol, Jr. denied all these allegations in a letter dated October 23, 2000 to Commissioner Jorge R. Coquia. He did not provide any documentary evidence to support his claims that the allegations of the Preda Director in the analysis was "only a product of his fertile imagination and has no basis in fact and in law." He denied that Human Rights of the Preda Director were violated.
After more than two years of struggle the false rape charges were finally dismissed for the third time as baseless and the resolution pointed to the teenagers as the real abusers who were originally accused by the then7- year old victim.
Example 2. Execution of homeless street youth and children.
There are many other cases where Human Rights defenders have been harassed de
jure. In another case in Davao City, Philippines, Human rights defenders opposed
the extra judicial shooting of street children and youth they were vilified,
threatened and harassed in their work while the vigilante death squad went on
with impunity in its bloody execution of innocent homeless youth and children.
Preda Internet campaign
Preda was invited to help and responded at once. A Preda internet campaign brought a massive international response, so much so that the Mayor of Davao filed criminal libel charges against the Preda director and the staff and threatened another moral damages case for US$1.2 million. After a year, the Mayor was eventually pressured to withdraw the charge.
The documentation of these two cases is enclosed as examples. We are encouraging other Human Rights Defenders and their organizations to submit to you their own experiences and letters of support to give you just cause to encourage the introduction of measures to implement the UN declaration and defend Human Rights Defenders from every kind of threat, intimidation and harassment de jure.
Immediate action that can be taken in the Philippines and elsewhere.
There is a practical and immediate action that can be done in the Philippines such as encouraging the drawing up and approval of legal instruments to stem the flood of false charges against Human Rights Defenders that are aimed to intimidate, harass and silence the voices that cry out for justice and truth.
We urge you to encourage internal reform in the Philippine Commission on Human Rights and to support the moves to develop legal instruments to implement in a effective way the provisions of the UN Declaration defending the Defenders of Human Rights.
Sincerely,
Father Shay Cullen, MSSC
President and Executive Director
Alex Corpus Hermoso
Programme Director
Merly R. Hermoso
Ariosto Arellano
Robert A. Garcia
Mary L. David
Gladys A. Escasa