PRESS STATEMENT
By JAN FERMON
MATHIEU BEYS
Lawyers at the Bar of Brussels
22 May 2006
On Tuesday 30 May 2006 from 9 :30 a.m. onward, the Court of First
Instance of the European Communities will examine the legality
of the antiterrorist list adopted by the Council of the European
Union in the case of Filipino professor Jose Maria Sison. Can
the Ministers of the 25 European countries qualify a person as
a terrorist and exclude him from economic life with neither evidence
nor due process? The stake is crucial for all the defenders of
fundamental rights in Europe.
On 28 October 2002, the Council of the European Union adopted
the decision 2002/848/EC by which Mr. Jose Maria SISON as a natural
person and the New People's Army (NPA) as a group or entity allegedly
linked to him were included in the list of so-called terrorist
organizations. This decision is in the framework of the fight
against the financing of terrorism, which is governed by a Council
Regulation of the European Union. The European Union thus followed
the United States and The Netherlands which had listed Mr. Sison
and the NPA as of August 12 and August 13, 2002, respectively.
Born in 1939 in Cabugao, Ilocos Sur, Philippines, professor Sison
gained fame as teacher, poet, political scientist and writer.
He was Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party
of the Philippines (CPP) before his arrest by the dictatorial
régime of Marcos in 1977. He was detained for more than
8 years until March 5, 1986 during which various forms of physical
and mental torture were inflicted on him. In September 1988, the
Philippine government cancelled his passport while he was abroad
on a lecture tour in various universities. Professor Sison then
sought asylum from the Netherlands. Since 1990, Jose Maria Sison
has been the chief political consultant of the National Democratic
Front of the Philippines (NDFP) in the peace negotiations with
the Philippine government, with the third party facilitation of
the Norwegian government. He in particular has contributed to
the forging of the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human
Rights and International Humanitarian Law by the parties in the
civil war in the Philippines.
The Council Decision of the EU, which regards Mr. Sison as a
person participating in or facilitating terrorist acts, is baseless.
Mr. Sison is neither the subject currently of any judgment nor
even of any criminal proceeding in any of the countries which
placed him on the list. It is impossible to know the material
reasons and elements which led the Council of the European Union
to describe him as terrorist. The lawyers of professor Sison lodged
several requests for access to the documents but each time he
was refused, with the Council claiming that their disclosure could
endanger public safety and the international relations of the
Union.
Following the adoption of this list, the joint bank account of
Mr. Sison and his wife was frozen. In this account, he had received
since since many years ago a social allowance and the Sison couple
used this account to pay for their daily purchases, to pay their
invoices of electricity etc. The balance of the account never
exceeded 2.000. The Council of the EU never bothered to explain
in what way the blocking of this account or the royalties of his
works, the suspension of the social benefits received by Mr. Sison,
the prohibition to subscribe to insurance for health or civil
liability could concretely contribute to counter the financing
of terrorism.
In the name of the fight against terrorism, a person is thus
deprived of the most basic social rights and the authorities try
to reduce him to the state of beggary and homelessness.
The decision to put professor Sison on this list and the procedure
which preceded it obviously violate the elementary basic rights
(right to due process, presumption of innocence, right of defense).
The consequences of this decision involve the negation of the
right to live a life with human dignity.
The case of professor Sison shows the abuses, which result from
antiterrorist decisions. In his case, it is obvious that these
measures are used with an aim other than the antiterrorist fight.
It is actually a question of exerting pressure on the National
Democratic Front of the Philippines, whose chief political consultant
is Jose Maria Sison, in the negotiations with the Philippine government,
as admitted by the Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Blas
Ople in January 2003: "when there is an agreement of peace,
I will ask the European Union, the United States and the other
countries to withdraw the rebels from the terrorist lists of organizations".
(see the article: "Reds must sign peace agreement to get
off terror list -- Ople", Agence France-Presse, February,
1, 2003 (http://www.inq7.net/brk/2003/feb/01/brkpol_12-1.htm)
The proceedings for annulment against the inclusion of professor
Sison in the list, introduced in February 2003 will be examined
on Tuesday May 30, 2006 from 9 :30 a.m. onward at the 2nd chamber
of the Court of First Instance of the European Union in Luxembourg
(Rue de Fort Niedergrünewald, Kirchberg Plateau, L-2925 Luxembourg).
This hearing is open to the public.
The Council of the European Union, with the support of the Netherlands
and the United Kingdom, insists that the traditional guarantees
of the European Convention of Human Rights would be inapplicable,
under the pretext that the making of this list is a purely administrative
procedure. This reasoning opens the door to very serious breaches
and the curtailment of fundamental principles of civil rights.
With the adoption of Regulation (EC) n° 2580/2001, the Council
of the European Union, a nonjurisdictional body made up exclusively
of members of the governments of the Member States, assume powers
normally reserved for independent courts: to designate individuals
as terrorist and to inflict on them serious sanctions amounting
to penalties. It thus negates completely the principle of separation
of powers.
The case of professor Sison also shows that this mechanism is
a misuse of power since it allows a political institution to use
the fight against terrorism as means of diplomatic and foreign
policy .It is essential that all human rightst organizations and
militants mobilize and alert public opinion against this violation
of fundamental principles. In this respect, the hearing of the
application filed by professor Sison in Luxembourg will be a crucial
event in the struggle for humans rights, as well as in the antiterrorist
fight within the legal system of the European Union. #