Filipinos and concerned citizens around the globe are holding simultaneous acts of solidarity and support on the Global day of Action for Kidapawan Farmers this Friday, April 8th.
In Vancouver, Filipino-Canadian groups, human rights groups, students, and various community groups are holding a rally on the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery. Organized by Migrante BC, the Canada-Philippines Solidarity for Human Rights and the International League of Peoples’ Struggle, the mass action serves to highlight the brutal dispersal by the Philippine police of the blockade of farmers with their families and children. The police opened fire on the farmers resulting in the deaths of two farmers, the wounding of over a hundred, the arrest and detention of 74 people and of 88 people still missing.
Video footages of the brutal dispersal has shocked and angered people across the world. Click here: http://interaksyon.com/article/125901/at-least-1-confirmed-dead-many-wounded-as-police-fire-on-cotabato-human-barricade
With seven months of drought, the farmers, 6000 strong, demanded rice to feed their families and for calamity relief to help their communities survive the drought. The response of the government and its police has not been to distribute rice to feed the hungry but to fire at its own hungry and starving citizens. The day after the brutal and bloody dispersal, the police were awarded medals for their actions in the dispersal.
In the morning of April 8, a delegation will be going to the Philippine Consulate General to deliver a letter of concern addressed to the Philippine President BS Aquino.
For more info, please call Beth at 604-616-3015 or email migrante.bc@gmail.com.