BALTIMORE — A Baltimore woman has been arrested in the Philippines in the company of an alleged member of a communist insurgent group, according to a government report.

The Philippine News Agency reported that Christina Pasion, a Baltimore-based activist, was apprehended last week along with an officer of the New People’s Army, the military wing of the communist party that has been in armed rebellion against the government for decades.

Family, friends and supporters of Pasion, 27, have scheduled a rally at 5:30 p.m. Thursday at McKeldin Square at the Inner Harbor to demand her release.

They have been in touch with the office of U.S, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who said in a statement to The Baltimore Sun that his staff “is looking into this matter” and talking to the Pasion family “to determine how we can best assist.”

“We are seeking her immediate release,” said Pasion’s wife, Vivian Pasion. “I want her home as soon as possible.”

Vivian Pasion said she and her wife were high school sweethearts at Carver Center for Arts and Technology and live in Waverly. Christina Pasion worked as a paralegal, she said, and was an activist for migrant justice, advocating for groups like Filipino seafarers who were removed from cruise ships in Baltimore.

Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, had also intervened in a similar case of another Baltimore-area Filipino-American woman, Chantal Anicoche, who, like Pasion, had been in the Philippines studying and working with indigenous people when she vanished in January and was subsequently taken to a military camp. Military officials said she was there voluntarily for medical treatment, and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County graduate was released earlier this year. The Sun was unable to reach her.

The government’s account of Pasion’s apprehension noted she had been seen with Anicoche and NPA members in December in Mindoro, an island to the southwest of Manila. Anicoche vanished after a bombing campaign launched by the Philippine military against the NPA in the area in January, in which civilians and indigenous people were killed, injured and displaced. Activists say the attacks are part of a campaign to suppress local resistance to their land being subjected to mining and other major development projects.

The government account suggested that Pasion might have been recruited by the Philippine communist party, which has “broadened its international networks.

“Through front organizations, personal networks and deceptive narratives, they attempt to recruit young people beyond the Philippines and draw them into a violent and futile cause,” the account quoted a military official. “Pasion’s apprehension should serve as a warning to foreign nationals and young advocates who may be targeted by the group’s recruitment and propaganda.”

Her family decried in a letter posted on social media what they called a “smear campaign” against the “long time community advocate” who had “returned to her motherland to work and learn alongside rural communities.”

Pasion’s supporters say she was taken into custody on July 30 while seeking medical treatment in Cabuyao City, Laguna. Vivian Pasion said she did not know the nature of her wife’s medical issue.

The government’s account said Pasion was with Binay Serrano, whom it identified as a medical and logistics officer of an NPA platoon. The account said there was a warrant for Serrano’s arrest and that she faced murder charges.

The account did not specify what, if any, charges have been made against Pasion, only saying that she “was turned over to the Bureau of Immigration for appropriate disposition of immigration violations.”

Recca Peralta, a friend of the Pasions and a co-organizer of the Thursday rally, said Serrano was an indigenous activist. She accused the government of “red-tagging” activists, calling them communists without any evidence.

“This is a growing pattern of Philippine government repression of human rights advocates,” said Peralta, who is with the DMV affiliate of the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines.

A U.S. State Department spokesperson said in an emailed statement that it was “aware of the detention of an Aerican in the Philippines.

“The Trump administration takes seriously our commitment to Americans abroad and stands ready to provide consular assistance,” the spokesperson wrote. “Due to privacy and other considerations, we have no further comment.”

Representatives of the Philippine government did not did not respond to emails from The Sun by Wednesday evening.

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