'[Issuing search warrants] requires judgment, circumspection, and yes, holding police power to the higher standard. After all, the greater the power, the less the excuse.'
“We are deeply worried that these latest killings indicate an escalation in violence, intimidation and harassment and red tagging of human rights defenders.” UN
Search
You Are Here:Home → 2021 → March → 9 → Rights defenders score another victory against ‘copy-paste’ search warrants
Rights defenders score another victory against ‘copy-paste’ search warrants
By RONALYN V. OLEA
MANILA – For the third time, another local court invalidated the search warrants used to arrest human rights defenders.
In a decision dated Feb. 18, Judge Ana Celeste P. Bernad of Bacolod City Regional Trial Court Branch 42 granted the motions to quash search warrants and suppress evidence filed by Karina Mae De La Cerna, Cherryl Catalogo, and John Milton Lozande.
The accused were all arrested in Bacolod City on October 31, 2019 by virtue of search warrants issued by Judge Cecilyn Burgos-Villavert of RTC Quezon City. They were charged with illegal possession of firearms and explosives.
Search warrant vs Bacolod activists quashed gmanetwork.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from gmanetwork.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Asia Sentinel
Police gun down at least nine in assault against activists
Photo Credit: Mark Baltazar Saludes
Philippine police today (March 7) staged gory raids on leftists in the southern part of Luzon, the country’s main island, killing nine persons and arresting six more believed to belong to activist groups. It was one of the biggest one-day offensives of Rodrigo Duterte’s presidency against activists, many of whom have been “red-tagged” by his administration.
The killings come two days after Duterte delivered a bloodthirsty speech to the “National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict,” which he created to end a pesky but hardly threatening insurgency.