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DISPERSAL OF AKBAYAN YOUTH WAS UNPROVOKED, BARBARIC
by AKBAYAN •
Thursday, Jul. 29, 2004 at 7:26 PM
"It is ironic that for a President who once rose to power precisely because people took to the streets, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo now stands by while the repressive machinery of police forces beat up and arrest the people who toppled her predecessor in Malacañang," thus said AKBAYAN President Ronald Llamas as their party denounced the violent dispersal of their protestors along Commonwealth Avenue.
July 26, 2004
AKBAYAN gathered near the Batasang Pambansa to hold a symbolic protest action by blowing bubbles into the air to symbolize PGMA's SONA promises, but were met by truncheon-wielding anti-riot policemen.
"We negotiated, but the police would not have any of it and they started hitting us with no provocation whatsoever," said AKBAYAN Youth leader Elvira Escoto.
Ten AKBAYAN Youth members were hurt in the ensuing dispersal including one who was hit in the head. Some were also slightly injured, with some suffering from contusions.
"We were holding a peaceful assembly, and were expressing our Constitutionally guaranteed rights to expression," said Escoto, "but this bloody dispersal only goes to show how poorly trained our policemen are when it comes to human rights and civil liberties when they attacked unarmed civilians," she added.
Llamas explained "We are just calling for full and decent employment, genuine agrarian reform, affordable and quality education, health and housing, sound fiscal policies based on the assertion of national interests."
"But the administration has so far lacked the political will that can prove once and for all that she is not beholden to elitist interests," he said. Llamas added that PGMA is "Obviously not willing to listen to such arguments, otherwise our protest action would not have been met with such violent resistance," he said.
http://www.akbayan.org
