We don’t want another Andrea, says rights group

Karapatan chair Marie Hilao-Enriquez: We don’t want another Andrea Rosal. PHOTO FROM HER TWITTER ACCOUNT

MANILA, Philippines–A human rights group is demanding the release of a pregnant political detainee after a Quezon court allowed her hospitalization because of her condition.

Maria Miradel Torres should be set free for humanitarian reasons as the “inhuman condition inside the jail is unfit for her delicate pregnancy,” said Karapatan chair Marie Hilao-Enriquez.

“We say it again, we don’t want another Andrea Rosal here,” said Enriquez, in reference to the daughter of the late communist rebel leader Gregorio Rosal.

Rosal was seven months pregnant when she was arrested in late March. She gave birth the following May to a daughter, Diona Andrea, who eventually died.

Karapatan learned the Infanta Regional Trial Court Branch 65 had approved Torres’ urgent hospitalization at the Taguig-Pateros District Hospital.

“While we welcome the court’s decision, we demand Torres’ immediate release for humanitarian reasons. Torres, who is four months pregnant, is weak from profuse bleeding and is experiencing threatened abortion. It doesn’t help that she was transferred from one jail to another, and moved back and forth from jail to hospital for a checkup,” Enriquez said.

Torres, a member of the Gabriela women’s group, was arrested by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and the AFP Intelligence Service on June 20 allegedly for a murder case.

Despite her condition, she was held at the station hospital at Camp Nakar in Lucena City.

On June 25, Torres was transferred to a female detainees dormitory in Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig City and was brought to the Taguig-Pateros District Hospital for a checkup.

According to Karapatan, because there was no court order, Torres was not allowed to be confined at the hospital. On June 27, Torres refused to be taken to the hospital again for an ultrasound test because she felt too weak to travel.

Enriquez said Torres was being held in a small cell with three other detainees, one of whom has tuberculosis. She sleeps on a plywood bed and her medications have been confiscated. A doctor has advised her to get complete bed rest.