Youth group calls on Aquino to immediately sign Anti-Enforced Disappearance Law; surface ‘desaparacidos’
Anakbayan calls on Aquino to immediately sign Anti-Enforced Disappearance Law; surface ‘desaparacidos’
Youth group Anakbayan today called on President Benigno Aquino III to immediately sign into law the Anti-Enforced Disappearances Law of 2012 criminalizing enforced disappearances committed by state forces.
Anakbayan members are among those “disappeared” — abducted by suspected state forces, secretly detained and are still missing until now. Among them are Karen Empeno and Sherlyn Cadapan, two UP students abducted in 2006 in Bulacan, and Jonas Burgos, son of late anti-dictatorship icon Joe Burgos, abducted in 2007.
According to human rights group Karapatan, at least 11 persons have been “disappeared” under the Aquino government.
“The law should immediately be signed and implemented. The courts will surely be flooded with cases vs military perpetrators and state agents. Aquino should not shield his commanders and generals responsible for enforced disappearances and should end standing military policies tolerating enforced disappearances,” he said.
Crisostomo called on Aquino and the military to immediately surface “desaparacidos.”
“The law should immediately be used to surface Karen Empeno, Sherlyn Cadapan, Jonas Burgos, and the hundreds of others disappeared under Arroyo and the 11 recorded disappeared under Aquino,” he said.
Crisostomo said if Aquino is serious in upholding human rights, he should personally lead the search for desaparacidos.
“We challenge Aquino to join the victims’ families, open up the camps and secret detention centers, dismantle AFP battalions responsible for abductions and disappearances, and send to jail generals responsible for enforced disappearances. He should junk Oplan Bayanihan and other military campaigns targeting unarmed activists and citizens,”
Anakbayan said they will certainly file charges against military and state officials responsible for disappearing hundreds of activists and wage a campaign to surface desaparacidos.
