MEMORANDUM-CIRCULAR

TO: ICC MEMBERS AND MEMBER-ORGANIZATIONS
FROM: OFFICE OF THE ILPS CHAIRPERSON
SUBJECT: FORUMS AND SEMINARS AS PART OF CAMPAIGN TO STOP OPPRESSIVE POLICY
DATE: 12 OCTOBER 2009

We hereby forward to you from the International  DEFEND Committee the concept of forums and seminars as a major part of the campaign to stop the oppressive policy against Prof. Jose Maria Sison.

Please be informed and guided accordingly.

Thank you.

Concept from the International DEFEND Committee

FORUMS AND SEMINARS ON THE USE OF FALSE CHARGES

The Philippine government, under the Arroyo administration has systematically trumped up and used false charges of terrorism and common crimes against its political opponents and social activists.

By itself, the use of false charges to demonize, criminalize and persecute individuals and groups is a grave violation of human rights. It leads to far graver violations of human rights, such as the following:

1. The abduction, torture and extrajudicial killings of persons like Jonas Burgos and Supreme Bishop Alberto Ramento, who are listed as communist terrorists in the Philippine military's lists of "order of battle”  and “enemies of the state”. See the hundreds of cases in the Alston and Karapatan reports.
2. The arbitrary arrest and indefinite detention of persons like Batasan 5 and Randall Echanis.
3. The false criminal allegations against Prof. Jose Maria Sison to block his asylum and his residence abroad, to put him in the terrorist blacklist of several governments, to imprison him and to raid and seize things from the NDFP information office and homes of NDFP panelists, consultants and staffers in The Netherlands.

A series of forums and seminars, with speakers on each of the three above categories can achieve the following objectives:

1. To expose how the Arroyo regime and its military minions use various means and methods of violating human rights, including the law-enforcement agencies, prosecutors, courts, the court of public opinion (mass media), death squads, military camps and safe houses.
2. To explore the ways of undoing the entire system of human rights violations, the lack of command responsibility and the impunity of human rights violators and rendering justice and indemnifying and making other amends to the victims of human rights violations.

The speakers in the forums and seminars may include the victims of human rights violations and the survivors and witnesses in the case of murdered victims, legal experts, human rights and defenders, parliamentarians, religious leaders, academics and other personages who have influence in policy-making and in the making of public opinion.

The sponsors and organizers of the forums and seminars may be groups and institutions concerned with upholding, protecting and promoting human rights violations.

On the scale of Europe, the forums and seminars may be planned as to be held in as many countries and major cities as there are willing organizing groups, cooperators and sponsors under a single coordinating body for the entire continent.

For the widest possible impact, the papers and proceedings of the forums and seminars must be published in book or pamphlet form and circulated through the print and broadcast mass media, websites, listserves and mass meetings.