{"id":8523,"date":"2023-06-26T01:00:38","date_gmt":"2023-06-26T00:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/?p=8523"},"modified":"2023-06-23T14:03:55","modified_gmt":"2023-06-23T13:03:55","slug":"political-prisoner-leila-de-limas-request-for-bail-denied","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/political-prisoner-leila-de-limas-request-for-bail-denied\/","title":{"rendered":"Political prisoner Leila De Lima’s request for bail denied"},"content":{"rendered":"

On June 7, 2023, a Philippine court rejected the application for bail<\/a> of former opposition senator Leila de Lima. When she criticised human rights violations in the so-called “war on drugs<\/a>” of then President Rodrigo Duterte, she was then falsely accused<\/a> of drug trafficking by the Duterte government. For more than six years, de Lima has now been held in police custody as a political prisoner<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Philippine human rights groups such as Bagong Alyansang Makabayan expressed disappointment<\/a> at the denied request for release on bail. So did the human rights organisation Karapatan, which clearly condemned<\/a> de Lima’s case as politically motivated due to the lack of evidence and retracted testimonies.<\/p>\n

De Lima’s hopes for release were already high when the second of three charges against her was dropped<\/a> by a Muntinlupa City court on May 12, 2023, due to the withdrawal of an incriminating witness statement. Although Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla then praised<\/a> the functioning of the Philippine judiciary, the Department of Justice (DOJ) subsequently appealed<\/a> the court’s ruling. In it, the DOJ questioned the recantation<\/a> of the incriminating testimony sworn under oath against de Lima.<\/p>\n

After de Lima’s six-year wait for a court verdict, the Supreme Court’s Office of the Court Administrator (OCA) ordered on May 18, 2023, the relevant court to conclude<\/a> her trial within nine months. De Lima’s lawyers are preparing to appeal<\/a> the decision to deny her bail petition.<\/p>\n

Although prosecutors were able to prove the existence of drug trafficking in the New Bilibid prison, their efforts to implicate<\/a> de Lima failed as her one-time key witness recanted her testimony. Carlos Conde from Human Rights Watch does not see<\/a> de Lima’s recent acquittal as a sign that the legal system is functioning. However, it there is hope that de Lima’s imprisonment could be ended sooner – a hope that is necessary to continue to demand her immediate<\/a> release and an end to the ongoing politicisation of the Philippines’ justice system.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Photo \u00a9 leiladelima.ph\/gallery\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On June 7, 2023, a Philippine court rejected the application for bail of former opposition senator Leila de Lima. When she criticised human rights violations in the so-called “war on drugs” of then President Rodrigo Duterte, she was then falsely accused of drug trafficking by the Duterte government. For more than six years, de Lima […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":7841,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[64,63,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-war-on-drugs-en","category-human-rights-defenders","category-human-rights-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8523"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8571,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8523\/revisions\/8571"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}