BANGKOK: China sanctioned a former Filipino lawmaker Tuesday over perceived “anti-China” positions, including his authorship of bills that marked out the Philippines’ territorial claims in the disputed South China Sea.
Francis Tolentino, who has just finished serving his term as majority leader of the Philippine Senate, is prohibited from entering China as well as the territories of Hong Kong and Macao, according to the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“For some time, some anti-China politicians in the Philippines have adopted a series of malicious words and deeds on issues related to China for their own selfish interests, which have harmed China’s interests and undermined China-Philippines relations,” said the statement. “The Chinese government is determined to defend its national sovereignty, security and development interests.”
In a statement on X Tuesday, Tolentino said he will “continue to fight — for what rightfully belongs to our nation,” adding the sanction was a badge of honor and that no foreign power could silence him.
Tolentino authored two bills which marked out the Philippines’ claims in the South China Sea. The two laws, called the Philippine Maritime Zones act, and a second one called the Philippine Archipelagic Sea Lanes act, were signed into law last November. The laws reaffirmed the extent of the country’s maritime territories in the South China Sea and right to resources from these areas.
The laws drew quick condemnation and dismissal of their legitimacy from China, which claims virtually all of the South China Sea.
“Any objections from China must be met with unwavering defense of our sovereign rights and adherence to lawful arbitration outcomes,” said Tolentino at the time.
Tolentino also accused China of planning to interfere in the mid-term elections in May in the Philippines, and had launched an investigation into alleged Chinese espionage when he was still a senator.
The Philippines and China have been engaged in verbal and physical clashes over their claims in the offshore region.
Confrontations between Chinese and Philippine coast guard and naval forces in the disputed sea have become increasingly common in the past two years, with the Philippine side publicizing videos of Chinese boats firing water cannons.
China sanctions former Filipino lawmaker who defended Philippines’ South China Sea claims
https://arab.news/8bajq
China sanctions former Filipino lawmaker who defended Philippines’ South China Sea claims
- In a statement on X, Tolentino said he will “continue to fight for what rightfully belongs to our nation” adding the sanction was a badge of honor and that no foreign power could silence him
US judge orders lifting of Trump-backed limits on pro-Palestinian Tufts student
- Ozturk’s arrest on a street in the Boston suburb of Somerville, Massachusetts, was captured in a viral video that shocked many and drew criticism from civil rights groups
BOSTON: A federal judge on Monday cleared the way for a Tufts University PhD student and pro-Palestinian activist Rumeysa Ozturk to work on campus after ordering the Trump administration to restore her status in a key database used to track foreign students.
Chief US District Judge Denise Casper in Boston issued an injunction after concluding Ozturk was likely to succeed in proving US Immigration and Customs Enforcement unlawfully terminated her record in the database the same day that masked, plainclothes agents took her into custody in March.
That ICE-maintained database is called the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System and is used to track foreign students who enter on visas. The termination of a student’s record from that database prevents that person from being employed.
Ozturk in a statement said she was grateful for the ruling and that she hopes “that no one else experiences the injustices I have suffered.”
The US Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ozturk’s arrest on a street in the Boston suburb of Somerville, Massachusetts, was captured in a viral video that shocked many and drew criticism from civil rights groups.
She was detained after the US Department of State revoked her student visa as the Trump administration moved to crack down on non-citizens who engaged in pro-Palestinian activism on campuses.
The sole basis authorities provided for revoking her visa was an editorial she co-authored in Tufts’ student newspaper a year earlier criticizing her school’s response to Israel’s war in Gaza.
The former Fulbright scholar was held for 45 days in a detention facility in Louisiana until a federal judge in Vermont, where she had briefly been held, ordered her immediately released after finding she raised a substantial claim that her detention constituted unlawful retaliation in violation of her free speech rights under the US Constitution’s First Amendment.
Following her release, Ozturk, a child development researcher, resumed her studies at Massachusetts-based Tufts.
But the administration’s refusal to restore her SEVIS record has prevented her from teaching or working as a research assistant, leading her lawyers to ask Casper to order its reinstatement so her academic and career development would not be further jeopardized in the final months before she graduates.
Casper, who was appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama, said the administration had provided “shifting justifications” for terminating Ozturk’s SEVIS record, at times wrongly claiming she had failed to maintain her lawful, foreign student status.
To the extent it now acknowledges she complied with rules governing foreign students like herself, “it is all the more irrational that the government has imposed negative consequences on her that are inconsistent with that status,” Casper wrote.
