:: WMC EXCLUSIVE

Mary Thom is an author, editor, and journalist who is managing editor of the Women’s Media Center website. An early and long-time editor of Ms. magazine, she now writes and consults for a number of non-profit women’s organizations, including the National Council for Research on Women. Her books include Inside Ms.: 25 Years of the Magazine and the Feminist Movement and Letters to Ms.: 1972-1987. Coming this fall from Farrar, Straus, and Giroux is her oral history of the life and times of Bella Abzug, coauthored with Suzanne Levine.

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In Philippines, WMC Reporter Is Harassed by Macapagal-Arroyo Government  by Mary Thom

August 14, 2007 

Three leaders of the Gabriela Network, a Philippines-United States women’s solidarity organization, were placed on a Philippines Department of Justice “watch list” and threatened that they would not be allowed to return to their homes in the United States. Novelist and activist Ninotchka Rosca, whose reports on human rights violations under President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s administration have often appeared on the Women’s Media Center website, is among the three.

Members of the network organized protests to Philippines consuls and mounted vigils in four U.S. cities yesterday. Then on Tuesday evening, Philippines time, after considerable harassment at the airport, Rosca and her companions were permitted to board a plane bound for the United States. Earlier, when it appeared they would not be allowed to leave, Lana Linaban of Gabriela Philippines said at a press conference, “we denounce the Arroya government’s unceasing attacks on progressive organizations such as Gabriela. It has now reached a point when our friends and supporters are being targeted as well.”

Annalisa Enrile, chair of Gabriela Network USA (GABNet) and a professor at the University of Southern California, was barred from boarding a plane headed for the United States on August 5, apparently under provisions of the Human Security Act, recently enacted in the Philippines. Rosca, a U.S. permanent resident, and Judith Mirkinson, a U.S. citizen, were told to expect the same treatment as all three planned to leave August 14. The women were part of a Human Rights Lawyers Delegation to the Philippines that reported last year on assassinations of organizers belonging to the Gabriela Women’s Party and the political persecution of Representative Liza Largoza-Maza, among other Filipino legislators.

GABNet organized vigils Monday in front of Philippines consular offices in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco, demanding that the three women be allowed to return to their homes immediately. “It’s clear that the Philippines government . . . is desperately trying to intimidate and silence international solidarity,” said GABNet Secretary General Doris Mendoza, “especially those focusing on the countless human rights violations and political killings.” She said the harassment “reconfirms the undemocratic and unjust character of this U.S.-backed Macapagal-Arroyo regime.”

For updates and more information, go to the Gabriela Network USA website