Peace Activist Denied Entry To The Philippines

October 8, 2024

On October 05, 2024, Copeland Downs, an official observer to the Karapatan Human Rights Alliance Congress, was prevented from entering the Philippines. He was held by the Philippine Bureau of Immigration for hours. During this time, his luggage was searched and his passport held. He was told that he cannot enter the Philippines because he is on a blacklist for “attending a rally in 2022” in the Philippines, a factual error. Copeland safely returned to the United States.

Copeland, the Chairperson of Portland Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines and an active member of the ICHRP-US faith working group, had visited the Philippines previously to meet with peasant and urban poor communities. He was also one of 60 official delegates to the International Observers Mission that investigated the 2022 Philippine national elections.

The denial of entry is a violation of Copeland’s rights to freedom of movement and part of the larger pattern of attacks against human rights defenders and the growing international solidarity movement for human rights in the Philippines.

As documented in Investigate PH and this year’s International People’s Tribunal, attacks against human rights organizations have worsened under the US-designed counterinsurgency (COIN) program of the Philippine government. Threats, surveillance, red-tagging, heavy militarization and occupation of communities, alongside repressive “counter-terror” legislation have made the documentation of human rights abuses and war crimes increasingly dangerous. Under the COIN program of the Duterte and Marcos regimes, state forces do not distinguish between civilian and so-called “insurgents,” which lead to widespread attacks and violations against individuals, civilian communities and even foreign activists.

Since the Duterte regime, ICHRP has documented 17 incidents of attacks against solidarity activists and members of ICHRP since 2018. These attacks include: surveillance of solidarity activists while visiting the Philippines, harassment via placing tarpaulins up in the Philippines calling activists supporters of terrorist groups, red tagging ICHRP members on social media, and tagging state forces in Canada about ICHRP events. In addition, the Philippine government deported Australian activists Sister Patricia Fox and Gill Boehringer under the Duterte regime.

The 2009 US COIN handbook not only calls for a population-centric approach that flattens the distinction between civilian and military targets, but also seeks to win the favor and support from civilian populations in the US and neighboring countries. The Philippine government’s COIN, guided by the US, seeks to clean up its human rights image and win support and military aid from abroad. It also attempts to intimidate, harass, and prevent human rights and solidarity activists from exposing the real situation in the Philippines.

The ongoing trend of barring human rights defenders and solidarity activists from entering the Philippines raises the question: what exactly does the Philippine government, and the current Marcos Jr regime, have to hide?

If the current regime has nothing to hide, Marcos Jr should immediately lift the ban on all activists who were denied entry into the Philippines. The fact that Copeland was not able to attend and observe the Congress of Karapatan, an organization at the forefront of documentation of human rights and international humanitarian law violations against peasants, workers, and other oppressed masses in the Philippines, further proves the importance of organizations like Karapatan and ICHRP.

ICHRP will not be intimidated, but see this incident as a greater reason to strengthen our solidarity with the Filipino people. We demand the immediate lifting of the ban against activists living abroad who have been denied entry to the Philippines. We call on third party governments, especially the US, to end military aid to the Philippines until the intense attacks cease.

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