Defend Windel Bolinget. Junk All Trumped-up Charges Against Indigenous Peoples And Human Rights Defenders.

The International Indigenous Peoples Movement for Self-Determination and Liberation (IPMSDL) welcomes the recommendation to dismiss the trumped-up murder charges filed against Windel Bolinget and fellow activists on grounds of lack of probable cause. This recommendation was made by the Prosecutor’s Office of the Regional Trial Court Branch 20 in Tagum City, Davao del Norte in its report for the reinvestigation of the charges.

These fabricated murder charges filed against IP rights defender, Mr. Windel Bolinget, is part of the state’s systematic attacks against Indigenous Peoples, activists and peoples organisations. Through incessant judicial harassment, vilification, red-tagging, mass arrests and killings, state forces targeted Indigenous Peoples, IP communities and organisations for their longstanding active campaign against development aggression, militarisation and imperialist plunder.

We at IPMSDL stand against all forms of harassment and violence committed against Indigenous Peoples. We stand with Windel Bolinget, an IPMSDL International Coordinating Council Member, and the Cordillera Peoples Alliance (CPA), one of our founding organisations, against these desperate attacks to their rights and lives. 

Such news only strengthens our resolve to continue our campaigns for the rights of Indigenous Peoples and to strengthen our alliances to hold accountable this repressive Philippine government and its despot Pres. Duterte for their crimes against Indigenous Peoples and against wider sectors of Philippine society.

We encourage our members and networks, defenders of human rights in the local and international arena to amplify our calls for justice for the victims of this murderous state. We fully support the calls to drop all trumped-up charges against Windel and fellow activists, and demand an independent investigation into the crimes committed by this administration against the Filipino people.

Reference:
Beverly Longid, Global Coordinator

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