MANILA, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / 13 Sept) – Dutch authorities have ordered the release of jailed Filipino communist leader Jose Maria Sison for lack of evidence in all murder charges against him, reports said Thursday.
Sison, founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines, was arrested on Aug. 28 in The Netherlands where he is living in exile by the Dutch police allegedly for ordering the NPA killings in 2003 and 2004 of Romulo Kintanar and Arturo Tabara, ex-CPP leaders.
The U.S. designated the CPP, NDF and the NPA as foreign terrorist organizations on Manila's prodding after peace talks failed in 2004. The Philippine government insisted the rebels, who fighting the past four decades for the establishment of a Maoist state in the country, to lay down their arms and sign a peace deal.
Earlier, Luis Jalandoni, of the CPP’s National Democratic Front of the Philippines, protested the decision of The Hague Court extending the detention of Sison for a further 90 days.
Jalandoni said Sison's detention is a gross violation of his right to due process.
“At a stage when he is a mere suspect, he is subjected to prolonged detention of 105 days. Moreover, the Dutch authorities are violating his internationally recognized right to receive visits from his family and his doctor.”
“The conditions of solitary confinement inflicted on him are inhuman and a disgrace to a government that claims to respect human rights, democracy and the rule of law,” he said in a statement released early on Thursday.
The NDFP has condemned the persecution of Sison on what it called “trumped-up charges” already dismissed by the Philippine Supreme Court on June 1, 2007. (Mindanao Examiner)
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