Manila detainees to put cases in court

Press, 13 April 1978, Page 8

Manila detainees to put cases in court

(NZPA-Reuter Manila p ' The arrested leaders of a peaceful Opposition post-1 i election protest march in > Manila will not petition any ; i I court for their release, but' will defend themselves ■; against the sedition and ille- b 'gal assembly charges, theirp | lawyer has said. i A former senator, Mr Jo-11 jvito Salonga. who met the j, I more than 500 participants | of the Sunday march at| i their detention quarters inli 1 the capital’s outskirts on Monday, said the detainees i jhad complained of toilet 'conditions and lack of running water. 1 President Ferdinand (Marcos ordered the release iof all except the eight lead- : lers on Tuesday, but a mili-

tary spokesman yesterday (said none had yet been re- . leased because of bureau- | cratic problems in processing their papers. ' The spokesman said the! authorities were expected to (complete this by today when (some 540 marchers — most j of them charged for the first i time — would be released, [pending court hearings. President Marcos has invited foreign correspondents (to a news conference today, against a background of Government allegations that some foreign correspondents were politically partisan in i reporting last Friday the first elections since the declaration of martial law in 1972. The march on Sunday was

in protest against alleged vote-rigging, which the gov-; ernment’s new society movement denies. Though only a fraction of; official returns have been announced. President Marcos announced overwhelming support for his candidates, and a clean swe .p of the 21 seats in the sensitive capital or. the basis of the unofficial tallies. He subsequently announced he had ordered firm action against subversion, which included at least two security raids in the capital — one at the residence of an Opposition People’s Power candidate and the other at the rooms of a Roman Catholic seminarian alleged to be an organiser of the march on Sunday.