Honourable senators, there is personal history here. To understand the depth of the Philippine president’s vendetta against Senator Leila de Lima, please allow me to borrow from the evidence summarized in the bipartisan U.S. Senate Resolution 142, as unanimously adopted in January 2020, including application of the U.S. Global Magnitsky Act as relevant to the president and officials in the Philippines.

Here is a brief chronology of how Senator de Lima became the target of President Rodrigo R. Duterte. One, in her capacity as chair of the Commission on Human Rights, Senator de Lima investigated the alleged involvement of the Mayor of Davao City, Rodrigo R. Duterte, in the extrajudicial killings executed by a so‑called Davao death squad.

Two, on December 15, 2014, then Secretary of Justice de Lima led a raid on the national penitentiary which resulted in the confiscation of drugs, firearms and contraband, and the extraction of 19 drug lords and high-profile inmates involved in the facility’s drug network.

Three, on July 13, 2016, Senator de Lima, in her capacity as chair of the Senate Committee on Justice and Human Rights, filed Senate resolution number 9, calling for an investigation into extrajudicial killings and summary executions of suspected drug offenders arising from President Duterte’s “war on drugs.”

Four, on August 22, 2016, Senator de Lima conducted Senate hearings during which alleged former death squad members detailed extrajudicial killings executed as part of the anti-drug campaign. One member testified that Duterte participated in extrajudicial killings as Mayor of Davao City.

Five, on August 2, 2016, and September 19, 2016, Senator de Lima delivered two privileged speeches on the Senate floor calling upon President Duterte to end the killings. There is ample documentation that soon after those speeches President Duterte vowed publicly to destroy Senator de Lima.

Colleagues, the charges initiated by Duterte against Senator de Lima were supported by testimony elicited from inmates whose illegal activities were disrupted by her raid of the prison in 2014.

In 2017, the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission of the United States Congress held a hearing of the human rights consequences of the war on drugs in the Philippines during which Human Rights Watch testified about the:

. . . relentless government campaign against her in evident response to her outspoken criticism of Duterte’s “war on drugs” and her calls for accountability.

In 2018, the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention adopted an opinion, finding several categories of arbitrary detention, and concluding:

. . . Ms. De Lima’s political views and convictions are clearly at the centre of the present case and that the authorities have displayed an attitude towards her that can only be characterized as targeted and discriminatory.

Indeed, she has been the target of partisan persecution, and there is no explanation for this other than her exercise of the right to express such views and convictions as a human rights defender.

The United Nations working group went on to recommend that the Government of the Philippines adopt certain measures including: one, the immediate release of Senator de Lima; two, an independent investigation of the circumstances surrounding her arbitrary detention; and three, the provision of compensation and other reparations, including reinstatement to the positions from which she was ousted.

Retaliation by the Duterte administrations has included forcible confinement without bail, defaming Senator de Lima with brash accusations and crude sexist insults, leaking her personal information to the public, forcing her removal from the Senate Committee on Justice and Human Rights and denying her access to the Senate in an attempt to thwart her from fulfilling her parliamentary duties.

In February this year, just before her detention passed its fourth year, Senator de Lima’s legal defence team won their motion to dismiss the first charge against her on the grounds that the evidence presented by the prosecutors was insufficient for a criminal conviction. Once granted, such a motion is considered an acquittal by the court.

President Duterte continues to throw sexist insults at Senator de Lima, following his established pattern from before and long after her detention more than four years ago. Just a few weeks ago, at a public event, he was recorded as saying: “She is the only bitch who convinced the world she’s a prisoner of conscience.”

Honourable colleagues, we know that a working democracy requires that dedicated persons, both in government and civil society, be able to scrutinize governments and hold to account those in power. This includes senators — senators in Canada and senators in the Philippines.

When the Magnitsky bill was introduced into this place by the Honourable Raynell Andreychuk, it was because of the state persecution and murder of a young Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky who exposed massive corruption in the Russian government. As then Senator Andreychuk told us:

I also want to note that this bill does not bind the government, it empowers it. It gives to the government a tool to add to its deliberations in pursuit of Canada’s foreign policy goals.

In part, the bill before you today would call on the Government of Canada to seek justice on behalf of Sergei Magnitsky against all those involved in his illegal detention, torture and death. However, the bill moves beyond that: It would enable Canada to take a leadership role toward strengthening effective accountability for violations and crimes under international law. The bill takes into account the need to target gross human rights violators, wherever they or their assets may be hiding. It seeks to utilize internationally recognized human rights instruments, standards and definitions.

Colleagues, in the Australian House of Representatives, the plight of Senator de Lima has been used as a key example of why Australia should follow the U.S.A. and Canada in enacting a version of a Magnitsky law.

February 24 this year was the fourth anniversary of Senator de Lima’s imprisonment. This motion was introduced to mark her 48-plus weeks in detention, and in the U.K., 27 members of Parliament and the House of Lords, across party lines, sent a letter to the Philippine embassy in London calling for the immediate release of Senator de Lima. This motion reinforces that of the European Parliament in calling on the authorities of the Philippines to drop all politically motivated charges against Senator de Lima, to release her while she awaits trial, to allow her to freely exercise her rights and duties as an elected representative and to provide her with adequate security and sanitary conditions while in detention.

I speak to this motion today as an opportunity to join our voices as independent, thinking senators with parliamentarians and other human rights defenders with the assurance that we would not be alone in taking a stand to support a sister senator. In addition to the bipartisan sponsored resolution unanimously adopted by the U.S. Senate last year condemning Senator de Lima’s imprisonment and opposing the arrest and detention of other human rights defenders and journalists who were exercising their right to freedom of expression, many of our allies around the world have already taken a stand.

The immediate release of Senator de Lima has been called for by non-governmental organizations, human rights groups, parliamentary bodies, individuals, and specific bodies like the European Parliament, the Parliament of Australia, the ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights. Also, just a few days ago the world’s oldest and largest association of parliamentarians, the Inter-Parliamentary Union, better known as the IPU, reiterated previous calls for the release of Senator de Lima.

Honourable colleagues, we will not be the first parliamentary institution to speak out but, if we do, our action on this motion will be widely respected and send a signal as to where we stand on human rights by standing with a sister senator who is paying too steeply for speaking truth to power. Thank you. Meegwetch.