Philippines: Temogen ___Cocoy__� Tulawie faces yet again trumped up charge and warrant of arres
Event- Country
- Philippines
- Initial Date
- Jun 10, 2017
- Event Description
A warrant of arrest was issued against the peace and human rights activist Temogen "Cocoy" Tulawie by the Regional Trial Court in Sulu on 10 May, 2017. Tulawie is accused of being involved in the case of the kidnapped German journalist Andreas Lorenz from the Spiegel-magazine. In 2000, Lorenz had been covering the story of the kidnapping of the German Wallert family on the Malaysian island of Sipadan, when he himself was abducted by the Abu Sayyaf Group. Tulawie played a crucial role in providing the hostage with basic necessities and advocating for his release. Investigating Prosecutor Annie Marie Pierreangeli P. Ledesma filed the formal charges against Tulawie for kidnapping and serious illegal detention with ransom at the Regional Trial Court in Jolo, Sulu on 8th May 2017. The initial complaint against Tulawie was filed on 10th February 2017 only one month after Tulawie had filed a petition at the Office of the President to remove Ledesma from office on grounds of dishonesty, betrayal of public trust and grave misconduct. Then foreign correspondent Olaf Ihlau, who reported about the kidnapping for the Spiegel, testified that "the accusation that Cocoy kidnapped Lorenz is absurd". The American photo-journalist David McIntyre in addition attested that "Cocoy was there to help us verify information, facilitate contact with the hostages and help us bring in goods and messages to and from the hostages". "It is too easy to misuse the Philippine judiciary to silence political opposition. People like Tulawie should be awarded for their work; instead they're being put behind bars", says Dominik Hammann, country coordinator for the German human rights organization International Peace Observers Network (IPON). IPON expresses its deep concerns over the continuing criminalization of HRD in the Philippines and calls on Philippine state authorities to immediately drop the charge against Tulawie!
- Impact of Event
- 1
- Gender of HRD
- Man
- Violation
- Judicial Harassment
- Vilification
- Rights Concerned
- Right to fair trial
- HRD
- Community-based HRD
- Perpetrator-State
- Judiciary
- Police
- Source
- Monitoring Status
- Pending
- Event Location
Latitude: 6.047364799999998
Longitude: 121.00896109999998
- Event Location
- Summary for Publications
On 10 June 2017, a warrant of arrest was issued against the peace and human rights activist Temogen "Cocoy" Tulawie by the Regional Trial Court in Sulu.