'Near impunity' for drug war killings in Philippines, UN report says

04 June, 2020
'Near impunity' for drug war killings in Philippines, UN report says
Tens of thousands of folks in the Philippines might have been killed in the war on drugs since mid-2016, amid "near impunity" for police and incitement to violence by top officials, the United Nations said on Thursday (Jun 4). 

The drugs crackdown, launched by President Rodrigo Duterte after winning elections on a platform of crushing crime, has been marked by police orders and high-level rhetoric that might have been interpreted as "permission to kill", it said.

Police, who don't need search or arrest warrants to conduct house raids, systematically force suspects to create self-incriminating statements or risk facing lethal force, the UN human rights office said in a written report.

There has been only 1 conviction, for the 2017 murder of Kian delos Santos, a 17-year-old Manila student, it said. Three cops were convicted after CCTV footage resulted in public outrage, it said.

"Despite credible allegations of widespread and systematic extrajudicial killings in the context of the campaign against illegitimate drugs, there's been near impunity for such violations," the report said.

Police say their actions in the anti-drug campaign have already been lawful and that deaths occur in shootouts with dealers resisting arrest.

The report said that some statements from the highest degrees of government had "increased to the amount of incitement to violence" and "vilification of dissent has been increasingly institutionalised". 

"The human rights situation in the Philippines is marked by an overarching concentrate on public order and national security, including countering terrorism and unlawful drugs," it said.

But this is "often at the trouble of human rights, due process rights, the rule of law and accountability".

"The Government in addition has increasingly filed criminal charges, including through the use of COVID-19 special powers laws, against social media users posting content critical of Government policies and actions," the report added.

It'll be presented to the UN Human Rights Council later in June.

Lawyers and activists raised the alarm this week over a new anti-terrorism bill pushed by Duterte, warning of draconian and arbitrary provisions that may be abused to focus on his detractors.

DRUG-RELATED KILLINGS

Most victims in the drug war are young poor urban males, the UN report said. Their relatives described "numerous obstacles in documenting cases and pursuing justice". 

"The most conservative figure, predicated on Government data, shows that since July 2016, 8,663 people have been killed - with other estimates of up to triple that number," it said.

The UN cited reports of widespread drug-related killings perpetrated by unidentified “vigilantes” and a Philippine government report in 2017 that described 16,355 “homicide cases under investigations” as accomplishments in the drugs war.

A 2016 police circular launching the campaign uses the conditions “negation” and “neutralisation” of “drug personalities” it said, calling because of its repeal.

"Such ill-defined and ominous language, in conjunction with repeated verbal encouragement by the highest degree of State officials to use lethal force, may have emboldened police to take care of the circular as permission to kill," it said.

Government figures show that 223,780 “drug personalities” were arrested from mid-July 2016 through 2019, but unclear charges and irregularities in due process raise concerns that "several cases may total arbitrary detentions".

At least 248 land and environmental rights activists, lawyers, journalists and trade unionists were killed from 2015 to 2019, the report said. So-called red-tagging, or labelling persons and groups as communists or terrorists, had become rife.
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