Friday, November 23, 2012

COFFIN PROTEST SEEKS SPEEDY JUSTICE FOR MASSACRE VICTIMS IN PHILIPPINE

MANILA, Philippines - More than a hundred coffins were carried from suburban Quezon City to Manila by rights, media and lawyer groups in protest over delayed trials in the 2009 election-related massacre of 58 people, including 32 journalists.
The coffins, made of paper mache, represented other victims of political killings in the Philippines since the start of President Benigno Aquino’s term in 2010. 
The 58 people were massacred and buried in shallow mass graves by relatives and members of private armies of Andal Ampatuan Sr, former governor of Maguindanao, in his hometown in the south on November 23, 2009, rights lawyer Harry Roque said.
Members of the National Union of Journalists in the Philippines (NUJP) also led protesters in the lighting of 58 candles at the commemorative marker for the victims of the Maguindanao massacre, which was erected at Manila’s National Press Club, in time for the event’s third year.
Protesters went to Mendiola, near Malacanang, the presidential palace, where they burned a towering 11-foot effigy named ‘Impunity Master’. 
“The effigy symbolises Filipinos’ dream to put an end to the culture of impunity that is exacerbated by the powerful and the mighty,” said Crisanto de Leon, head of Artists Collective, a group of visual artists that was behind the effigy’s creation.

Source: Herald...More...

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