A Dutch court has ordered a Philippine communist rebel leader to be held in detention for two weeks to allow prosecutors to investigate his case.
Jose Maria Sison is accused of ordering the murder of two ex-allies in Manila.
The founder of the Philippine Communist Party, Mr Sison was arrested on Tuesday in the central Dutch city of Utrecht, where he has been living in exile.
The party's military wing, the New People's Army, is waging a rebellion that has cost more than 40,000 lives.
Former US Attorney General offers Sison legal assistanceA former US attorney general has offered to join an international team of lawyers to defend Jose Maria Sison, founding chairman of the Communist Partyof the Philippines who has been detained at the Netherlands on multiple murder charges.
"Sison is a great spirit that the world needs to know about, a great voice that the world needs to hear. The demonization [of him] will destroy us if we permit it to continue," lawyer Ramsey Clark said in a press statement of the New York Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines (NYCHRP) that was provided by Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN).
Clark expressed concern over Tuesday’s arrest of Sison.
Clark, who served as US Attorney General under President Lyndon Johnson in 1967 until 1969, called on the Dutch government to immediately release the communist leader.
He described Sison as a "gentle person and an inspiting leader". "Everyone who is concerned about peace and freedom has to be greatly distressed over the arrest of Joma Sison," Clark explained in a meeting with the NYCHRP in his Manhattan home.
He criticized the judicial system of the Dutch government. He said it is unable to handle Sison’s case with validity and competency since the charges against him originated in the Philippine and was already dismissed by the Philippine Supreme Court.
"The Dutch can't determine the facts," Clark explained. "The Dutch can't investigate in the Philippines. They can only rely on what (President Arroyo’s) government tells them, and what the [Arroyo] government wants is persecution for Jose Maria Sison," he said.
"If we want peace on earth, we got to do better. I hope that Netherlands can start right now by releasing this great man, Joma Sison," he added.
Clark defended Saddam
Clark gained reputation from defending controversial leaders. In 2004, Clark became one of Iraq President Saddam Hussein’s lawyers in the Iraqi Special Tribunal.
Clark also attended the funeral of ousted Yogoslavian leader Slobodan Milosevic in 2006. Milosevic was brought to the International Crimes Tribunal in The Hague Netherlands for crimes committed in the war-stricken Serbian region of Kosovo. Clark called the charges against Milosevic as ‘factless’.
In 2005, Clark led a campaign calling for Sison’s name to be removed from the United States and European Union’s list of terrorists.
In a statement, Clark also expressed his disapproval of the recently passed Human Security Act (HSA) by the Philippine government last February.
"The new HSA is a copy of the US Patriot Act, which is probably the most unpatriotic act I've seen past by US Congress, in my many years practicing law," Clark stated. "Sadly the Philippines has been subjected to too much copying of some of the worst aspects of the US, and the HSA ought to be repealed."
Clark also expressed the need to withdraw US military aid to the Philippines.
T"he recent US Senate hearing on the extrajudicial killings in the Philippines, headed by Senator Barbara Boxer, could play an influential role as September marks a crunch period for the Senate and House appropriations committees to decide on military spending for 2008. Major human rights watchdogs and churches testified that US military aid to the Philippine military translates into death squads killing civilians who criticize the Arroyo government," he said.
To avoid US aid reduction,according to Clark, is highlighting the need to invest in war in Mindanao to fight terrorism.
"Every penny given in US aid, will be re-paid in Philippine blood. US aid is buying power through surrogate governments abroad," Clark said.
"I urge [the US Congress to withdraw US aid to the Philippines, and urge you to insist that the Philippines be free of all US military presence, especially the building of new bases in Mindanao." He added. Bayan: Sison, treated like Guantamo prisoner
BAYAN, for its part, compared Sison’s detention to the Guantamo Bay detention facility of the US military. Guantanamo, located in Cuba, is the most guarded prison in the world. The US uses its facility to detain suspected international terrorists.
"Prof. Sison is being held incommunicado. He is being denied his right to a doctor, prescription medicines as well as visits from his family. His rights as a prisoner are being violated by the Dutch government," BAYAN secretary-general Renato M. Reyes, Jr. said.
"It appears that behind the ill-treatment of Sison is the fact the the Dutch government still considers him a terrorist despite his victory in the European Courts on his de-listing. The terrorist label has often been used to justify tortures and other abuses of prisoners. We will hold the Dutch government responsible for any harm that may befall Sison during his detention at the Dutch prison facility," Reyes added.
He warned that Sison’s detention will spark more protests in the Philippines and the world. He said the US government should not interfere in Sison’s case in order to promote the war against terrorism.
"The United States, Netherlands and Philippine governments are all singing the same tune that Prof. Sison is a terrorist. They are ganging up on Joma in the vain hope that they can justify their own wars on terror. The murder charges are just a means to persecute and vilify Sison and the cause he stands for," Reyes said.
Reyes asserted that Sison's is not a criminal matter. He said the Philippine and Dutch governments are conspiring to isolate Sison from the world to break his ‘spirit’.
It added that more protest actions worldwide are being planned to coincide with Sison's next appearance in court on September 7.Sison’s jail conditions meet intl standards – Dutch spokesman
The Dutch Ministry of Justice had said that the Netherlands prison system meets international standards, ABS-CBN Europe News Bureau reported Friday.
Ministry of Justice Spokesman Han Janssens reacted to an allegation of National Democratic Front negotiating panel chief Luis Jalandoni of the Dutch government’s "scandalous violation" of international laws and basic rights of Jose Maria Sison who was reportedly placed in solitary confinement days after his arrest.
"I never heard that the Dutch prison system doesn’t meet the international standards," Janssens said in a telephone interview.
Janssens said that prisoners in the Netherlands are allowed to file complaints regarding their treatment.
"If a prisoner has complaints about his treatment, there’s this procedure where he can apply these complaints to an independent commission which is located in every prison in the Netherlands or he can get in touch with his lawyer," Janssens explained.
Jalandoni complained that Sison is not allowed visitors at the prison, barred from reading newspapers and watching TV.
More importantly, Jalandoni said that Sison is not allowed to receive his medicine.
Although Dutch government regulations do not allow Janssens to provide specific information on individual detainees, he said that prisoners in the Netherlands have the same medical rights as people outside the prison.
"Every prison in the Netherlands has a medical staff and every prisoner who enters the prison for the first time will be seen by a medical staff there and one of the questions there is do you use medicines, what kind of medicines," Janssens said.
The spokesman explained that the medical staff then gets in touch with the prisoner’s physician or family doctor in order to discuss whether these medicines are necessary and get the correct doses so that no mistakes are made.
When will people realize that having insiders like Ramsey Clark, Kenneth Starr, William Kunstler, and other such types defend them is a death sentence?
It has been that way for a long time. Some high profile defendant actually had a chance, and then the “big name lawyer” offers his services for free, so the defendant ends up getting nuked. But there is a huge amount of publicity!
The defendants usually get suckered into thinking that they will get a better defense, when all the big name lawyer is interested in is headlines. And maybe worse.
If I were in such a case, I would appeal to the judge to just have a public defender on my side, and to prohibit the big name lawyer from participating in my case in any way or even from being allowed in the courtroom.
And it also works the other way. If the prosecution gets taken over by some big name, like Kenneth Starr, they are not brought in to get a conviction. They are brought in to appear to be working hard while throwing the case. To create the *illusion* that they are doing everything in their power to get the maximum sentence, while actually tainting and corrupting the whole process so it just dies.
It is so terrible that it makes you wonder if when someone like Timothy McVeigh went to trial, if the high profile lawyer Stephen Jones, “an attorney and Republican activist” didn’t defend him, he would still be alive in a federal penitentiary.
It looks like he was brought in to defend McVeigh all the way to the electric chair. With some enthusiastic local public defender, they are too unpredictable. You never know when they will come up with some angle to save the defendant’s butt, even if you have a hanging judge.
And don’t underestimate an up and coming lawyer. Often they have a certain brilliance and eagerness about them that makes up for their lack of experience. Plus, they know if they can pull off a “big one”, they could be on the fast track to success. They are highly motivated, and even if threatened to make them throw the case, they may not.
“If you’re such a stupendous lawyer, then why are you offering to defend me for free? Could it be that you are doing what you are doing for *your* benefit, and not mine? You get what you pay for.”
However, such a high-profile lawyer might be a good tip-off that somebody really hates your guts, and hates them enough to want to cheat the game. You had better really watch your behind. And the judge, jury, witnesses, and evidence. Because somebody who hates you that much won’t be thwarted easily.
