Amnesty International urgently called for international pressure and an immediate UN investigation to help end what it says are possible crimes against humanity in the Philippine president’s bloody anti-drug crackdown.
The London-based rights watchdog said in a study released on Monday that extrajudicial killings in Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s three-year-old campaign remain rampant and the scale of abuses has reached “the threshold of crimes against humanity.”
About 6,600 people, most of them accused of petty drug crimes, have been killed in the crackdown Duterte launched as his centerpiece project when he took office in mid-2016.
Photo: AP
Nongovernmental groups claim a much higher death toll, including many suspects killed by motorcycle-riding gunmen human rights groups suspect were financed by police officers.
Duterte and the police have denied any authorization of extrajudicial killings.
However, Duterte has repeatedly threatened drug suspects with death in televised speeches and encouraged law enforcers to shoot suspects who fight back.
He has warned that the crackdown will be more dangerous for suspects in the final three years of his six-year term.
Philippine National Police Chief General Oscar Albayalde said such claims were “allegations that have never been proven.”
All police actions have been done within the bounds of the law and the constitution, which guarantees the protection of human rights, he said.
Amnesty said Bulacan province north of the capital has become “the country’s bloodiest killing field” after some officers involved in the crackdown were transferred there from the Manila metropolis, which used to be the “epicenter of killings.”
“The reliance on violent and repressive policies continues to perpetuate human rights violations and abuses in the country,” Amnesty said in its study.
Amnesty regional director for East and Southeast Asia Nicholas Bequelin said Duterte’s campaign “continues to be nothing but a large-scale murdering enterprise for which the poor continue to pay the highest price.”
Amnesty said it investigated 20 drug-related incidents in which 27 people were killed across Bulacan from May 2018 to April by interviewing witnesses, families of the dead, local officials and rights activists.
Amnesty concluded that half of the incidents “appear to have been extrajudicial executions” based on witnesses’ accounts and other information.
The others were murky due to difficulty in obtaining information about the killings,” although their broad outlines were consistent with patterns of previous extrajudicial executions,” the group said.
Slain suspects who struggled to earn a living were accused of being “big-time” drug dealers, Amnesty said, citing interviews with families of suspects.
Police officers always justified the deaths by claiming that suspects fought back during so-called “buy-bust” operations, where undercover agents posed as drug buyers, but Amnesty said it doubted the police reports, saying they did not “meet the feeblest standards of credibility.”
Some suspects who police claimed fired back were too poor to buy a gun.
Others died after police forcibly broke into homes and opened fire then later claimed the suspects fought back after sensing they were being entrapped in police “buy-bust” transactions, Amnesty said, citing accounts by suspects’ relatives and witnesses.
Amnesty also questioned the legitimacy and accuracy of drug “watch lists,” which it said contain the names of drug suspects targeted in police raids.
The group called on the UN Human Rights Council to immediately initiate an investigation into the killings.
It also asked an International Criminal Court prosecutor to hasten the examination of complaints sparked by the massive deaths so the Hague-based tribunal could open a separate investigation.
Iceland has submitted a draft resolution to the 47-state Human Rights Council asking the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to prepare a comprehensive report on human rights in the Philippines.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in