HUMAN rights group Karapatan yesterday asked the Supreme Court to act on its petition seeking the reversal of a Court of Appeals decision that junked their plea for the issuance of a writ of amparo and habeas data against government officials in the wake of last month’s killing of human rights activist Zara Alvarez in Bacolod City.
In a manifestation filed through the assistance of the National Union of People’s Lawyers, Karapatan urged the SC to look and re-examine its understanding of “red-tagging and terrorist-labeling” and to consider these as threats “to the people’s rights to life, liberty and security.”
Joining Karapatan in filing the manifestation were Gabriela and the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines.
They said the killing of Alvarez and the threats received by their other members before and after the killing are more than enough reason to prod the justices to act on their plea.
Alvarez was one of Karapatan’s witnesses in their petition and the group said she was supposed to shed light on the relentless red-tagging and terrorist labeling that she and other activists in Negros Island have experienced.
Alvarez was the second witness in the Karapatan petition who was killed after Ryan Hubilla was shot dead in Sorsogon city last year. Hubilla’s companion, another Karapatan member, Nelly Bagasala, was also killed in that attack.
