PRESS STATEMENT

30 August 2007


Reference: Emmi De Jesus, GABRIELA Secretary General and Alternate
Member, ILPS

International Coordinating Committee (09173221203)

GABRIELA Public Information Department (3712302, 3744423)


                       Release Jose Maria Sison!

      Assert the peoples’ legitimate right to political struggle!


The militant women’s organization GABRIELA vehemently condemns the
arbitrary arrest of Filipino political exile and International League
 of
Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS) chairperson Jose Maria Sison on August 28 by
the Dutch Police on cases of multiple murders fabricated by the Dutch
government in collusion with the Philippine and US governments.


Professor Sison was imprisoned by the Dutch Police with nary an arrest
warrant presented before him or knowledge of any case being pursued
against his person. The simultaneous police raids on Sison’s house
 and
the houses of Sison’s close Filipino associates, including the office
 of
the National Democratic Front to which Sison concurrently serves as
Chief Political Consultant, only illustrates the fact that the Dutch
police has yet to collect evidence that could implicate Sison on these
trumped up murder cases.


With not even an iota of clear legal basis for the actions of the Dutch
Police, Sison’s arrest and detention is nothing but politically
motivated. It is a crack at criminalizing his political dissent, a
patent suppression of his civil and political rights.


The Arroyo government has consistently shown its knack to
 circumnavigate
judicial procedure in its desperation to silence political
oppositionists and the Filipino people’s assertion of their right to
dissent. In the homeland, the Arroyo government has been sanctioning
extrajudicial killings, involuntary disappearances, arbitrary arrests,
baseless criminal lawsuits and several other methods of violating the
rights of the people in its desperate bid to subdue political
opposition. With Sison’s case currently in tow, Arroyo has succeeded
 in
exporting fabricated murder cases to persecute those who dare defend
 the
people against the unjustness and fascism of her regime. Arroyo could
not have been more excited in this victory, as indeed she has found a
reliable ally in the Dutch government, whose lease on Sison's freedom
presages a more ambient economic relations between the two governments.


The Philippine government acts upon the active prodding and assistance
of the US government to consolidate and expand its war on terror
 against
every dissident, including those who struggle behind the legitimate
cause of advancing the rights, welfare and freedom of peoples.


As chairperson of the ILPS, an anti-imperialist and democratic
organization that serves as international rallying force in the
 struggle
of peoples throughout the world for national independence, democracy
 and
social liberation, Sison is at the forefront of the struggle against
 the
intensifying exploitation and oppression of different peoples of the
world by US imperialism and its puppet regimes. That the US government
would target Sison is no cause for surprise, considering his active
stance in opposing these policies that undermine people’s interests.


This latest act of persecuting Sison is as such a blatant attack on all
peoples who fight every unjust and oppressive policy of the US and any
of its puppet governments all over the world. To criminalize Sison on
the basis of his political stance and conviction is to persecute as
 well
organizations and peoples who wage these legitimate political
 struggles,
to portend reference to legitimate peoples' organizations as criminals
and terrorists. It is a wretched attempt to write off the integrity and
justness of standing up for the welfare and interests of all oppressed
peoples, a cause that Jose Maria Sison has come to symbolize among
various peoples of the world.


As founding member of the ILPS, GABRIELA condemns the political
persecution of Jose Maria Sison in the name of asserting the legitimacy
of the peoples' right to wage political struggles in the Philippines
 and
at the international front. ###