“The NLG recognizes that Veloso’s case is not a singular, isolated incident, but rather a product of an exploitative economic system purposefully built upon the labor of overseas workers.”
By JANESS ANN J. ELLAO
Bulatlat.com
MANILA –An organization of lawyers based in the United States has joined to call to save Mary Jane Veloso, a Filipina on death row in Indonesia.
In an open letter addressed to Indonesian president Joko Widodo, National Guild Lawyers president Azadeh Shahshahani said Veloso should be removed from death row and “grant her rights to due process, a proper trial, and humane treatment.”
“The Indonesian government has violated Veloso’s basic human rights such as the right to fair trial and due process as guaranteed under both domestic and international law. Veloso was not provided with interpreters during her trial and had no consistent legal representation,” Shahshahani said.
Shahshahani said that Veloso is a victim of human trafficking “who had been trying to improve the situation of her family when she was unknowingly duped into being a drug mule.”
“The NLG recognizes that Veloso’s case is not a singular, isolated incident, but rather a product of an exploitative economic system purposefully built upon the labor of overseas workers. She did not go abroad with the intention of participating in the international drug trade. Rather, extreme poverty forced her to leave her home in the Philippines and travel to Malaysia and Indonesia for a chance to better provide for her family,” she said.
Veloso’s vulnerability to such scheme, she said, is a “result of the pitfalls of the Philippine Labor Export Policy, which provides little assistance and safety to the more than 5,000 overseas Filipino workers who leave the Philippines every day, she was defrauded by her labor trafficker into carrying luggage with heroin, in exchange for the false promise of economic security.”
The National Guild Lawyers is an organization of US-based progressive lawyers and jurists. It is the oldest and most extensive network of public interest and human rights lawyers in the US.
Last week, the International Association of Democratic Lawyers wrote to Widodo to spare the life of Veloso, citing three grounds: primacy of gravity, proportionality of sentence to the gravity of the crime, and individualization of sentences by considering the personal circumstances of the accused.
