(Hong Kong, January 8, 2010) The Asian Human Rights Commission is pleased to inform you that 14 of the 18 workers who were held in detention after having been falsely charged have been temporarily released.
The workers, collectively known as the Karnation 20, were first arrested in March 2007 and were continuously detained over questionable charges of serious illegal detention. The workers’ employer, Karnation Industries and Export, Inc., a company engaged in the business of manufacturing and exporting goods, filed charges against them after the workers held a strike demanding their rights and welfare.
Their case has been pending for two years at the Regional Trial Court (RTC), Branch 80, in Morong, Rizal. It was on July 2009 that their case started to make progress in court after a labour lawyer, Remigio Saladero, took up their cause.
For further details, please read: Nineteen striking workers laid with fabricated charges continuously detained
It was in November 2009 that the court granted the workers’ petition for bail. They were released few weeks later on a surety bond.
Daisy Arago, executive director the Center for Trade Union and Human Rights (CTUHR), the of the AHRC’s local partner, said of the court’s granting of bail:
“The combination of pressure letters sent to the judge from local and international communities as well as the series of hearings that our legal counsel had strongly pursued forced the judge to grant the detainees their petition to bail”.
‘Employer would rather pay police, judge than give workers salary due them’
After the workers’ release, the CTUHR and the May Day Productions produced a video documentary titled “Pasko ng Paglaya (Christmas of our Freedom)” containing interviews with two of the released workers, Sonny Batuyang and Richard Sabuco, and their family members.
The May Day Production described the video in its YouTube post: “Workers recount how they were sent to jail by their employer and struggled to get out. They now enjoin us to help those still in prison to attain justice and freedom.”
In this interview, Lorna, wife of Sonny, has disclosed that in one of her meetings with the workers’ employer, she was told: “You are all dead hungry, I don’t care if I lose money paying the police and judges rather than give it to you”. (You can view this YouTube video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIrePrWKXQg)
After their release from jail, Sonny and Richard recounted how difficult it was in an overly congested jail that needlessly exposed the detainees to illness and a variety of communicable diseases. Two of their companions, Melvic Lupe Leo Paro, died in jail after contracting tuberculosis.
Arago, however, urges all those concerned for this case to monitor and to “continue sending (appeal) letters to the following (authorities) so that the remaining detained workers will be granted temporary release”.
