FREE THE ARTIST! FREE ERICSON ACOSTA NOW!
PRESS CONFERENCE
Monday, January 23, 2012, 1pm
BAYAN Conference Hall
4/F Erythrina Bldg., Matatag cor Maaralin Sts.,
Barangay Central, Quezon City (near KFC Matalino St.)
with Gary King
Amnesty International USA Minneapolis chapter leader
National Artist Bienvenido Lumbera
of the Philippine Center of the International PEN (Poets, Playwrights, Essayists, Novelists) and the Concerned Artists of the Philippines
Atty. Jun Oliva, National Union of People's Lawyers
Angie Ipong, former political prisoner and secretary general of SELDA
MEDIA COVERAGE IS REQUESTED WITH PHOTO OPPORTUNITIES
Nearly a year has passed since cultural worker Ericson Acosta was arrested by the military in Samar on February 2011. He was tortured, interrogated for 44 hours straight and held incommunicado for three days before a fabricated charge of illegal possession of explosive was levied against him to justify his arrest and continued detention. A Petition for Review filed by his lawyers on September 2011 is still pending before the Department of Justice.
Acosta was named finalist of the 2011 Imprisoned Artist Prize at the Freedom to Create Awards Festival in Cape Town, South Africa in November for the raw recording "Prison Sessions." Since his arrest in February, the Amnesty International, the Center for Human Rights in the Philippine-United Kingdom, the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), the Concerned Artists of the Philippines, the Philippine Center of the International PEN (Poets, Playwrights, Essayists, Novelists) and other concerned groups have called on the Philippine authorities to promptly review Acosta's case to effect his immediate release.
Gary King, an Amnesty International chapter leader from Minneapolis, USA, has done research on Philippine human rights cases since 1976.
He is in Manila to look into the case of artist Ericson Acosta and other current human rights cases in the Philippines.
read the Amnesty International statement on Ericson Acosta
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