Press Release, April 20, 2006

The latest press release regarding this controversy can be found at the PIEL web site:

http://www.pielc.org/oposa/OposaPR_April20.pdf

The boilerplate text follows.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 20, 2006

INTERNATIONAL CONSERVATIONISTS CONDEMN ASSASSINATION AND CONTINUING DEATH THREATS AGAINST NOTED PHILIPPINE CONSERVATIONISTS

A Harvard-educated lawyer, law professor, and internationally-acclaimed environmental activist in the Philippines—Antonio Oposa, Jr.—has been informed that a bounty of PHP 1,000,000 has been offered for his assassination, as it was for his friend and colleague Elpidio de la Victoria who was assassinated last Thursday, in broad daylight, in front of his wife and son.

Oposa and de la Victoria—who was head of the regional fisheries commission—have been working to halt destructive fishing practices in the Visayan Sea, including illegal commercial fishing encroachments into municipal waters. The Visayan Sea is considered to be the most biological diverse marine area in the world. An off-duty police officer has been arrested as the alleged killer.

The news of the assassination and the continued threats to Oposa have triggered an outpouring of dismay and concern from law professors and conservationists around the world, demanding that the Philippines government ensure Oposa’s safety. This coming Sunday afternoon the public funeral for de la Victoria will be held in Cebu City, posing risks of another attack. The fear is that the civil government of the Philippines is not doing enough to protect the personal security of citizen activists.

In the last 48 hours more than 150 law professors and deans from more than a dozen countries have signed a letter of concern being sent to President Gloria Arroyo of the Philippines expressing their “horrified dismay“ at the violence. “It would be,” the petition declares, “a terrible mark upon the international reputation of the rule of law in the Philippines, and a devastating loss for the international legal and environmental communities, if further harm came to these citizen conservationists.”

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