Swedish parliamentarian
Soraya Post (right) and acting European Union ambassador Mattias Lentz (center) gather outside the PNP Custodial Center with other EU lawmakers after visiting detained Sen. Leila de Lima at Camp Crame yesterday.
A 12-member delegation of the European Parliament yesterday visited Sen. Leila de Lima at the Custodial Center of the Philippine National Police (PNP) at Camp Crame, Quezon City.
Soraya Post, a member of the European Parliament, said De Lima told them that PNP authorities are taking good care of her during her detention.
“But De Lima would like to go to her family and go to her work to vote in the Senate,” Post said in an ambush interview after the hour-long visit to the senator.
The delegation’s visit was to express concern about the case of De Lima and solicit her views on the human rights situation in the country as well as check on her unjust detention over trumped-up illegal drug charges.
During its session in March last year, the European Parliament denounced the illegal arrest and detention of De Lima and condemned the spate of extrajudicial killings under the government’s all-out war on drugs.
Aside from Post, who is from Sweden, the other delegates were Adam Kosa from Hungary, Joseph Weidenholzer of Austria, Rikker Karlsson of Denmark, Tsiguereda Walelign, ad- ministrator of the European Parliament subcommittee on human rights, Rebecca Altrutz and other officials of the subcommittee.
Thankful
De Lima thanked the European delegation for its visit.
“I personally thanked the MEPs for expressing indignation and serious concerns over my arrest during their plenary session in Strasbourg, France last March. They stood firm in saying that the charges filed against me were fabricated and subsequently called for my immediate release through their European Parliament resolution,” De Lima said in a handwritten note yesterday.
She said the delegation wanted to look into her condition as a “prisoner of conscience, deprived of liberty for defending human rights, opposing the brazen killings and flagrant violations of human dignity in the wake of Duterte’s murderous war on drugs.”
“Once again, these visits from international institutions prove that indeed, the world is watching closely what is happening in our country under the Duterte regime. The US Congress will even hold hearings on the widespread human rights violations across the globe, including the Philippines,” De Lima said.