Condemn the arrest of documentary filmmaker Gopal Menon who was part of the team!

Release all the members of the Fact-Finding Team immediately and unconditionally!

By Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners

The CRPP strongly condemn the high handed authoritarian attitude of the West Bengal government to brow beat all public opinion towards its murderous suppression of the Adivasis of Lalgarh and Jangal Mahal. No other government committed to democratic principles will dare stop a Fact Finding Team comprising of lawyers, social activists, women’s activists, filmmakers and trade unionists.

From: Political Prisoners
By People's Uniod for Democratic Rights

In 2004, when the Congress led UPA government came to power it repealed the POTA, which it admitted had been grossly misused. It simultaneously amended an existing law, the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act 1967 (UAPA), siphoning into it some of extraordinary provisions of POTA, including those pertaining to banning of terrorist organizations. The conditions of banning under the amended Act no longer require a statement to explain the reasons of issuing a ban, a gazette notification merely adding an entry to the Schedule of the Act is sufficient, and there do not exist any provision for judicial redress.

Streetwise
By Carol Pagaduan-Araullo

AFP Chief Gen. Victor Ibrado recently admitted that the military is having difficulty meeting the deadline imposed by de facto Commander-in-chief Mrs. Gloria Arroyo three years ago, to end the decades-old communist insurgency in 2010. (Philippine Star, 22 June 09) This was after he and his predecessors had repeatedly boasted that the military was on track in achieving the defeat of the New People’s Army (NPA).  The lame excuse is that the armed guerillas “are just crisscrossing borders and transferring to another guerilla front” even when the AFP had already allegedly “dismantled” the political and military infrastructures of numerous rebel fronts.