Filtered By: Topstories
News

NUPL lawyer ambushed in Roxas City


A lawyer from the National Union of Peoples' Lawyers (NUPL) survived an ambush in Roxas City, Capiz, groups said Monday.

Fresh from a hearing, Criselda Heredia was in her car with her daughter and a client when a gunman fired at the vehicle around 11:30 a.m. Monday, the NUPL and rights group Karapatan said in separate statements.

Two bullet holes were found in the car, but all three were unharmed, Karapatan said. They went to a police station to report the incident.

Karapatan said Heredia is a known anti-mining activist and human rights lawyer who had previously experienced harassment and red-tagging.

She was allegedly tailed in November 2018 when she visited the wake of slain human rights lawyer Benjamin Ramos, and was among the NUPL-Panay chapter lawyers who were in a poster put up in Iloilo City that tagged them as "minions of the Communist Party of the Philippines."

The NUPL said 47 lawyers, judges, and public prosecutors have died since President Rodrigo Duterte came to power.

"We condemn this latest attack against human rights lawyers.  This is indicative of the deteriorating human rights situation in the country where all critics who raise legitimate demands, including human rights defenders, are deemed as targets," Karapatan said.

"We attribute this attack to the vicious and ruthless state forces of the Duterte government, given Atty. Heredia’s work and advocacy for political prisoners and for the marginalized," it added.

The NUPL had asked for legal protection from what it said were state-perpetrated attacks against its members, but the Court of Appeals rejected their petition last July. The same court dismissed a similar petition by Karapatan weeks prior. —KBK, GMA News

 

 

LOADING CONTENT