Estrada threatens to boycott APEC summit

Estrada threatens to boycott APEC summit

MANILA (Agencies): Philippines President Joseph Estrada on
Thursday threatened to boycott next month's Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation (APEC) summit in Malaysia, citing the treatment meted
out to jailed former deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim.

Estrada made the remarks during a call at the presidential
palace by officers of the 365 Club, an informal group of
journalists and newspaper columnists.

"I'm thinking of not going to Malaysia because they put my
good friend Anwar behind bars," Estrada said, according to a
journalist who attended the meeting.

Anwar, the former heir apparent sacked by Prime Minister
Mahathir Mohamad last month, is in detention under a tough
emergency law for corruption and sodomy. He claimed he was
severely beaten while in police custody.

However, Press Secretary Rodolfo Reyes later tried to put the
statement in context, saying Estrada was merely expressing a
"personal" opinion and would not make public statements that
could antagonize a fellow head of government in the Association
of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

The ASEAN -- grouping the Philippines, Brunei, Indonesia,
Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam -- makes
up the core of APEC, which also includes other Pacific basin
nations like the United States, Japan and Canada.

Reyes insisted that as far as the Philippine government was
concerned, Estrada would attend the APEC meeting, but added the
internal situation there could change this.

"It depends on developments in Malaysia. Official word though
from Malaysia are that the APEC summit is going ahead," Reyes
said.

Reyes insisted Thursday that Estrada's comments were "not for
public consumption."

Still, Estrada's remarks broke a deafening silence on Anwar's
plight from ASEAN, which has jealously guarded a policy of non-
interference in each other's internal affairs.

During an ASEAN foreign ministers' meeting in Manila in July,
Thailand and the Philippines came under heavy fire for proposing
a shift from the tradition to "flexible engagement" that would
allow comment on internal policies which would impact on the
region as a whole.

Fellow APEC member Canada's finance minister, Paul Martin,
pledged Monday to raise the plight of Anwar during a meeting of
Commonwealth finance ministers in Ottawa this week.

Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy also called on
Malaysia to release Anwar and all those detained under the
country's draconian Internal Security Act, which provides for
indefinite detention without trial.

Human rights

In Bangkok an Asian human rights group on Thursday called for
the release of Malaysia's former deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim and
his supporters arrested last month.

FORUM-ASIA, a network of regional non-government organizations
with its headquarters here, issued the call in a letter to
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.

The letter, delivered to the Malaysian embassy here, also
expressed concern over alleged police brutality.

"We urge you to immediately release him from detention under
the Internal Security Act and to allow him to exercise his right
to due process," the letter said.

"We feel that Malaysia, as one of the leading countries in the
ASEAN community should show an example of a civilized nation, one
that treats its citizens with dignity and basic rights," it said.

The group on Monday blasted Mahathir's human rights record,
accusing him of creating a "climate of fear" in Malaysia in an
effort to crush all opposition.

FORUM-ASIA said a team of its experts had visited Malaysia
from September 24-27.

It said the security act resulted in "violations like
arbitrary arrest, detention, torture, illegal search and entry
(and) not allowing families and lawyers to have access to
detainees."

The team met with families of those detained, including
Anwar's wife Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, whom they said was under
"virtual house arrest."

In a related development, Malaysian police traveled to
Singapore on Thursday to interview journalists about how they
obtained interviews with jailed politician Anwar Ibrahim and his
wife.

"They had a list of questions wanting us to characterize the
interviews and how we obtained them," said Chris Blackman, vice
president of news programming for CNBC Asia, a regional
television network. "We said we were not going to comment on any
of our news gathering."

Police are investigating a possible case of sedition against
Anwar's wife, Azizah Ismail, because of her Sept. 21 interview
with CNBC. She had expressed fears for her husband's health and
mentioned rumors that police might infect him with the HIV virus
to prove allegations of homosexuality.

On Thursday, police summoned Azizah for the third time to
headquarters to question her about the comments. She described it
as "harassment and persecution."

Her lawyer Sivarasa Rasiah said he also was questioned.