Urgent alert
July 18, 2025
The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines vehemently condemns the permanent banning of Kapatid spokesperson Fides Lim from prison camps by the Philippine Bureau of Corrections. The ban will indefinitely prevent Lim from providing essential humanitarian aid to prisoners, in addition to interfering with the provision of other services and advocacy by Kapatid.
Kapatid is a support organization of families and friends of political prisoners in the Philippines that works for their release and the protection of their rights and welfare. Lim herself is married to political prisoner Vicente Ladlad, who is a peace consultant for the National Democratic Front of the Philippines. Lim and Kapatid have provided vital aid to prisoners including food, medicine, and women’s hygiene products – aid which the Bureau of Corrections itself does not have the ability to provide to meet the needs of prisoners living in extremely over-crowded and unsanitary conditions.
Lim discovered the ban on July 10 after being denied entry to the Correctional Institution for Women in Mandaluyong, Metro Manila while delivering food to prisoner Rona Degoso. Lim called the banning “politically motivated and institutional harassment”.
ICHRP calls for the lifting of the ban on Lim and for the release of all political prisoners in the Philippines. We call on the international community to increase support for political prisoners by raising legal funds, writing letters, and campaigning for their release.
