(Eagle News) — Detained Senator Leila de Lima has filed a bill to ensure the protection of what she said were the rights of “human rights defenders.”
De Lima said Senate Bill 1699 was filed after the “obsessive attacks against” the “concepts and principles”of “human rights defenders” like herself, “led by no less than the President himself.”
Under the measure, she said the rights of these “defenders” include their right to seek and receive information, their right to participate in the public sphere, their right to promote and protect fundamental freedom, their right to peaceably assemble, their right to advocate, their right to freedom from stigma, among others.
She said these “attacks” have rendered them “vulnerable and (their) work extremely difficult and dangerous,”
“Sa simula pa lamang po ng administrasyong Duterte, mahigit isang taon at kalahati na ngayon, ay nasaksihan na natin kung paano ininsulto at hinamak ang konsepto ng karapatang pantao,” De Lima said.
She gave the Commission on Human Rights a central role in the protection of such rights.
“I find it very urgent that we come forward and claim our right, as human rights defenders, to be recognized and protected. Not for our personal sake, but for the sake of our dignity as a people,” she said in a statement.
De Lima is currently detained in Camp Crame for cases filed against her in connection with her alleged involvement in the illegal drug trade in the New Bilibid Prison when she was justice secretary.
