Filipino groups to protest Marcos visit in Berlin

Filipino migrant organizations in Europe and Germany will welcome Philippine president Marcos Jr’s arrival in Berlin with protests. Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN) Europe together with ALPAS (Alternatibong Pangarap Para Sa Ating Sambayanan) Pilipinas, GABRIELA Germany, and the Deutsch-Philippinesche Freunde e.V. (German-Filipino Friends) are organizing a demonstration at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Berlin tomorrow March 12, 2024 from 5-6.30pm CET as part of a series of actions condemning Marcos Jr.’s human rights violations. “Marcos Jr.’s visit, designed to cleanse his family’s rotten image in Germany and the international community, will not be warmly welcomed. The President cannot hide from his family’s repugnant reputation,” said BAYAN Europe in a statement. The group called out the German government for agreeing to supply drones to the Marcos administration amid rising tensions in the West Philippine Sea. Earlier this year, the German Cooperation for International Cooperation (GIZ) pledged to provide additional four units of Trinity F90+ drones worth €129 million (P7.9 billion) to the Philippine Coast Guard to be used for imagery and reconnaissance purposes in the disputed waterways. “By providing ongoing military and political support to the Marcos Jr. regime, Germany and Europe are complicit to these abuses and criminal acts,” BAYAN Europe explained. The groups organizing the demonstration will also take part in the International Peoples’ Tribunal (IPT) on May 17-18, 2024 in Europe. Convened by the International Association of Democracy Lawyers (IADL) and the Friends of the Filipino People in Struggle (FFPS), the IPT seeks to investigate war crime charges against the US-supported Marcos and Duterte regimes.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

UP Diliman Professors Share Scientists’ Procurement Struggles at Senate Hearing

By Harvey Sapigao Senate hearing of the revised procurement law (Photo credit: Senate of the Philippines) College of Science (CS) Dean Giovanni Tapang held up a little white device as he finished his presentation. “This is a ₱150,000 component,” he described. “Isa lang gumagawa nito sa buong mundo, pero ang hirap pilitin sila na magregister sa PhilGEPS,” he continued, referring to the requirement that foreign companies must first register to the Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System (PhilGEPS) before they can sell products to local scientists. Marine Science Institute (MSI) Deputy Director Dr. Irene Rodriguez explained that the small device is a resin that filters metals in water. “May budget tayo,” she said, “pero ang problema ko ay ‘yung resin na ito.” This and other bottlenecks brought about by the procurement law, or the Government Procurement Reform Act (RA 9184), slow down research and development in the country. UPD leaders were invited to the Senate he
Read more

Russia captures town after 2 years of Ukrainian resistance --- Reuters

Russian forces now control 98.5% of Luhansk, 60% of Donetsk MOSCOW: Russian troops on Wednesday took charge of the eastern Ukrainian town of Vuhledar, a bastion that had resisted intense attacks since Russia launched its full-scale assault in 2022. The advance of Moscow's forces, which control just under a fifth of Ukraine, has underlined Russia's vast superiority in men and materiel as Ukraine pleads for more weapons from the Western allies that have been supporting it. Ukraine's eastern military command said it had ordered a pullback from the hilltop coal mining town to avoid encirclement by Russian troops and "preserve personnel and military equipment". The Russian defense ministry did not mention Vuhledar in its daily battlefield report. Russian Telegram channels, however, published video of troops waving the Russian tricolor flag over shattered buildings. The town, which had a population of over 14,000 before the war, has been devastated, with Soviet-era
Read more

Vietnam condemns China's 'brutal behavior' in fisher attack ---- Agence France-Presse

HANOI, Vietnam — Vietnam's foreign ministry condemned on Wednesday China's "brutal behavior" during a violent attack on Vietnamese fishers in the disputed South China Sea. The 10 fishermen were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars' worth of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands -- an archipelago in the resource-rich waterway claimed by China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei. Vietnam "resolutely protests the brutal behavior of Chinese law enforcement forces against Vietnamese fishermen and fishing vessels operating in the Hoang Sa archipelago of Vietnam", foreign ministry spokesperson Vietnam Pham Thu Hang said in a statement, using the Vietnamese term for the Paracel Islands. "The above actions of Chinese law enforcement forces seriously violated Vietnam's sovereignty" over the archipelago, the statement said. Four of the Vietnamese crew were taken to hospital on Monday
Read more