Lawyer Neri Javier Colmenares of the Council for Defense of Liberties (CODAL) said the complaint was filed before the UN Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) and the Working Group for Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) in Switzerland. Colmenares said the President allegedly violated the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and other international human rights laws for the “illegal arrest and arbitrary detention” of Beltran. Colmenares said according to the CODAL complaint, Beltran was arrested on the basis of his political beliefs using a case that was dismissed 21 years ago."Representative Beltran remains in custody despite the absence of an order for his detention. In fact, he was ordered released by a Quezon City RTC on 13 March 2006," Colmenares said. “No person can be detained merely because a case or information has been filed against him or her. There must be a warrant or an Order of Commitment issued by a court to make such detention legal,” Colmenares said.

This came as the Londonbased Amnesty International joined the United States State Department which recently noted the continuing abuses of human rights in the Philippines, particularly by the police. The International Committee of Journalists also issued a statement warning the Arroyo administration against curtailing the freedom of the press or terrorizing media practitioners.

In response to these accusations, Malacanang said the government has been active in trying to minimize abuses that are often committed in the course of its campaign against various rebel groups.

AI said it was “gravely concerned” over the killings of leftwing activists in the Philippines, and urged the government to send a clear message to security forces that extra-judicial killings will not be tolerated. In a statement, AI said comments by senior government officials linking leftist groups directly to communist insurgents threaten to “create a climate within which further political killings may take place.” “Amnesty International continues to be gravely concerned at reports of an ongoing pattern of political killings of
members of legal leftist organizations in various provinces nationwide,” the statement said.

It urged the government to conduct prompt, thorough and impartial investigations of all the killings."In order to combat impunity, the authorities must also send a clear, unequivocal message to all members of the police, military and other security forces that involvement in, or acquiescence to, such unlawful killings will never be tolerated," it said. The main leftwing party, Bayan Muna, says more than 80 of its members and officers have been assassinated over the past five years-including 32 last year. The party has accused the military of instigating the killings and organizing death squads, a charge repeatedly denied by military officials. On March 17, another top union leader in Hacienda Luisita was assassinated. (See RP news briefs) Bayan Muna is led by partylist
Representative Satur Ocampo, former spokesman of the underground Marxist umbrella organization, National Democratic Front. Ocampo and four other party-list legislators have been under custody at the House of Representatives complex since Feb. 27, three days after President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo declared a state of emergency to thwart an alleged coup plot. Arroyo lifted the emergency a week later. The police have threatened to arrest them if they step out of the Congress compound.

Amnesty International said that in connection with the emergency decree, the “political left in particular may have been targeted for a repeated series of arrests on a variety of spurious charges. ”Police have arrested a former labor leader, Rep. Crispin Beltran of the Anakpawis party, and charged him with rebellion. The military has accused Bayan Muna and its allies of supporting the New People’s Army, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, which has been waging an insurgency for 36 years.