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Statement of Prof. Jose Maria Sison Before the Raad van State on 23 August 2005
Your Honors:
To this day, I am grateful that this court made a decision in my favor
in 1995, to the following effect:
1. That I am a recognized political refugee under Article 1 A of the
Refugee Convention and that the claims of the Dutch government
against me under Article 1 F are baseless.
2. That I am under the absolute protection of the European Convention
on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (EVRM).
The 1995 decision of the Raad van State on my case also made clear that
if no other country were willing to take me, without putting me at risk
to suffer the violation of the guarantees of Article 3 of EVRM, the
Dutch government is obliged to grant me asylum and the residence permit.
Unfortunately, the REK in 1997 overruled the decision of the Raad van
State on certain crucial points. It denied the absolute protection of
Article 3 by weighing against my interest the secret intelligence
dossiers, which the Raad van State had repeatedly declared as anathema
to the principle of fair administration in its 1992 and 1995 decisions
on my asylum case.
The most important thrust of the REK decision, contrary to the decision
of the Raad van State, was to rule that it suffices for the Dutch state
not to deport or expel me in order to comply with its obligations under
Article 3 of the EVRM.
Since then, the Dutch government has practically emptied out the
guarantees provided to me by said Article 3 by insisting that I am
unlawfully staying in The Netherlands and that I myself have the
obligation to leave this country. It brazenly threatens my life and
subjects me to inhuman and degrading treatment by depriving me of the
essential means to human existence in order to drive me out of the
country and to evade its obligations under EVRM and international law.
It has always been my understanding that as one protected by article 3
of EVRM, I am protected not only from being sent directly or indirectly
to the sword of the country from which I have fled but also from the
violations of my rights under Article 3 of EVRM and the entirety of the
EVRM by the Dutch and other entities in The Netherlands and Europe.
The Dutch state itself should neither threaten my life nor degrade and
humiliate me by banning me from work and at the same time taking away
social benefits due me, inciting public hatred against me by maligning
me as a terrorist without any kind of due process and subjecting me
thereby to humiliating and degrading punishment.
The Dutch state should not deprive me of the means of subsistence in
order to drive me out of The Netherlands, do away with its obligation
under Article 3 of EVRM and probably deliver me to a country that
violates this.
My understanding of the EVRM is that anyone within the jurisdiction of
the European Union or any of its contracting parties, especially someone
who is a recognized political refugee under the Refugee Convention and
who is protected by Article 3, is entitled to certain rights and
freedoms under EVRM aside from those guarantees under Article 3.
Under EVRM I have the right to my life and property, to due process in
any action of the state that ascribes to me a criminal offense and
inflicts punitive measures on me, to privacy and family life, to freedom
of movement and to be secure from slander, vilification and public
incitement to hatred against my person.
I think that the level of protection accorded to me under Article 3 of
EVRM is far higher than the repeated orders for me to leave the
Netherlands and likewise repeated withdrawals of such orders. I am well
covered by the jurisprudence established in the decision of the Raad van
State on my asylum case in1995 and by that one established by the
European Court of Human Rights in the Chahal case in 1996. ###
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