Filipino progressive leader released from Dutch prison

In a major victory for progressive people around the world, a Dutch court has released Filipino leader Prof. Jose Maria Sison from prison. The court found no evidence to back charges that Sison had ordered the murder of two men in the Philippines. Dutch police had arrested him in the Netherlands on Aug. 27.

Filipino leader Prof. Jose Maria Sison. Photo: New Communist Party of the Netherlands

Sison, who has been exiled in the Netherlands for 20 years, has played an historic role in the Filipino people’s movement. The founding chairperson of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), he is now chief political consultant of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines. His arrest came as Philippines President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has waged a campaign of repression against the Filipino people’s movement.

“This is a big slap in Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s face,” BAYAN USA, an alliance of more than 12 social justice Filipino-American organizations in the U.S. declared in a Sept. 13 statement. “The counterinsurgency scheme of the Arroyo administration was behind the fabricated charges against Sison from the beginning.”

In 2001, the U.S. State Department declared that Sison, the CPP and the New Peoples Army were terrorists and that the Philippines were “the second front of the war on terror.” Arroyo was one of the first national leaders to join the Bush administration in its so-called “war on terror.”

Last year Arroyo began a crackdown on the leadership of the people’s movement. She declared a nationwide state of emergency and ordered the arrest of Crispin Beltran, a legendary labor leader and member of the Philippines Parliament, and five other elected parliamentarians, on charges of rebellion against the government.

The Arroyo regime targeted Sison at that time. An article in Inside PCIJ (Philippine Center of Investigative Journalism) noted that Sison was on a list of communist leaders and members, congressmen and others that the Philippine National Police Directorate for Investigation and Detective Management had forwarded to Justice Secretary Raul Gonzales.

But the Filipino movement has successfully fought back. Crispin was released in July. And after a worldwide mobilization to free Sison, the Dutch court backed down. This is the second victory for Sison. In July a European court ruled that he could access his funds, which had been frozen since December 2001.

BAYAN warned, however, that the fight is not over. Sison is still on the terrorist lists of the U.S. government and the European Union, and the Filipino people are living under state terror as a result of Arroyo’s undeclared martial law.

“We must remain vigilant,” BAYAN stated. “The terror tactics of the U.S.-Arroyo regime know no state boundaries. As governments act in collusion to stifle legitimate and just dissent anywhere, the Arroyo administration will go after Filipino progressives abroad. Our movement must not cease to take action in their defense.”