Human rights orgs urge gov’t to drop charges vs Cebu artist Bambi Beltran

“The government should signal that it’s taking the health crisis seriously. It could start by dropping the charges against Casilao, his colleagues, and Beltran, and ending politically motivated investigations of people’s reading materials and social media posts,” HRW said in a statement on Thursday, April 23.

Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development echoed the call to drop charges vs Beltran in a statement released on April 21. “Along with the Government’s intensified military and police response, these attacks on freedom of expression create a climate of fear for human rights defenders and the general public, and reflect the growing authoritarianism of Duterte’s regime,” the Asian human rights group added.

“A fully functional democratic society should be able to allow the reasonable exercise of free speech and expression as a means to participate in matters concerning public life,” the CHR said in a statement. After Cebu City Mayor Edgar Labella called the post “fake”, fellow artists came to Beltran's defense and said that it was sarcasm or satire. On Wednesday, April 23, Cordova town Mayor Mary Therese Sitoy-Cho asked 3 police officers to go to the house of a resident who tagged the mayor on Facebook to address concerns that a supermarket was allegedly understocked.

On March 19, Garcia vowed to sue a Facebook user who allegedly spoke about a conspiracy theory in a private group, claiming that 10 people had died from the coronavirus and that the city government tried to cover it up.HRW said that since the passage of the Bayanihan law, authorities have investigated dozens and arrested them for posts the government deems ‘fake news.”

Source: Law Daily Report (lawdailyreport.net)

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