PRESS RELEASE
DATELINE HANOI, 7 June 2009: President Jitendra Sharma of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL), salutes the people’s lawyers from the Philippines who continue the struggle amidst increasing violence and killings of lawyers and judges in the country. Sharma led the opening of the XVIIth Congress of the IADL in Hanoi on June 6 attended by more than 200 lawyers from all over the world and some 300 Vietnamese delegates. The IADL is an association of democratic lawyers, judges, jurists, law professors and students from some 100 countries. The XVIIth congress theme is “Law and Jurists in the Context of Globalization: for peace, development and independence of judicial activities.” The attacks on lawyers and judges in the Philippines, threaten the independence of judicial activities, which is one of the major concerns of the IADL, according to Sharma in his opening address to the congress.
The National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL), an affiliate of IADL, sent a nine member delegation from the Philippines led by its Secretary General, and now Party List Congressman, Neri Colmenares of Bayan Muna. Rep. Colmenares addressed the afternoon plenary session of the IADL congress where he emphasized that the perpetrators of extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances of lawyers, judges, activists and known oppositionists in the Philippines commit their crimes brazenly and with impunity. He noted the emerging pattern of attacks with impunity by Philippine security forces against known activists and dissenters like the issuance of an AFP powerpoint propaganda which listed four known human rights lawyers in their “Order of Battle”, and the earlier filing of trumped up charges against human rights lawyer Ming Saladero and other leaders of workers and peasants organizations.
The President of Vietnam H.E. Nguyen Minh Triet also addressed the plenary, together with the head of the Vietnam Lawyers Association.
The IADL congress, which will last until June 10, will also tackle the issues of Independence of the Judiciary, Right to Peace, Anti-Terrorism Laws, Accountability for International Crimes, Globalisation, and Development and Environmental Rights.
(Reference: Edre U. Olalia, NUPL Deputy Sec. Gen. for Int’l Solidarity Work, +639-267202844)
Published on 07 Jun 2009
