Philippine police have arrested a Manila-based doctor, accusing her of being a leader of a Maoist rebel group that has waged a decades-long insurgency against the central government.
Maria Natividad Castro, 53, is being held without bail and would be tried on charges of kidnapping, for which a lower court had ordered her arrest in 2020, police said in a statement on Friday.
However, her former employer, human rights monitor Karapatan, said that Castro was facing “trumped up” charges after she investigated alleged human rights abuses in the volatile Mindanao region while also setting up community health centers there.
Photo: EPA-EFE
She was arrested at her home on Friday, and accused of being part of the Philippine Communist Party’s Central Committee.
“Karapatan denounces the arrest of human rights and health worker Dr Naty Castro as yet another form of attack against human rights defenders,” the group said, referring to Castro by her nickname.
Critics say that accusations of memberships in communist groups — known as “red-tagging” — have been used to discredit and detain human rights advocates, journalists, lawyers and dissidents.
While the practice is not new in the country, it has intensified under Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, rights groups say.
At the start of his term in 2016, Duterte, a self-described socialist, had sought a peace deal with the Maoist rebels.
However, after talks collapsed in 2017, he branded the Philippine Communist Party and its armed wing “terrorist organizations,” and ordered soldiers to shoot female insurgents in the genitals.
Castro’s brother wrote on Facebook that she was just a health worker who had served indigenous communities.
“My sister is accused of multiple charges of kidnapping and illegal detention, all related to her human rights advocacy. ALL UNTRUE,” he wrote.
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