By ANTHONY IAN CRUZ
Malaya
Oct. 19, 2007

A MEMBER of the Hong Kong legislature is leading a fact-finding mission that seeks to shed light on human rights abuses under the Arroyo government.

Leung Kwok Hung of the Hong Kong Legislative Council arrived in the Philippines Monday for the Oct. 16-22 mission organized by the Hong Kong Campaign for the Advancement of Human Rights and Peace in the Philippines (HKCAHRPP).

Leung, popularly known as “Longhair” among Hong Kong residents, is a member of the powerful Finance and House Committees of the Hong Kong legislature. He is also a member of the legislative panels on Constitutional Affairs, Housing, Manpower, Transport, and Welfare Services.

The HKCAHRPP organized its first mission to the Philippines in July 2006 and came out with a scathing final report on the human rights violations it documented, especially extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances.

The mission members plan to meet with the heads of the Department of Justice, Task Force Usig, Commission on Human Rights, and Chief Justice Reynato Puno who met HKCAHRPP members in Hong Kong last year.

Rey Asis, one of the mission members and regional secretary of the Asian Students Association (ASA), said the mission will visit Central Luzon, Southern Tagalog and Metro Manila which they first visited in July 2006. “The world has condemned Mrs. Arroyo’s abuses of human rights repeatedly and without letup. We want to know for ourselves what she has done concretely to stop the carnage of innocents,” said Asis.

Asis said will issue its report on Oct. 22 or 23 in time for the implementation of the writ of amparo and the anniversary of the United Nations which both fall on Oct. 24.

Members of the mission include delegates from the Asian Human Rights Commission, Asian Monitor Resource Center, Asian Center for the Progress of Peoples, Asian Students Association, Asia Pacific Mission for Migrants, and the Hong Kong Federation of Christian Students.