More executions reported in Philippines: UN experts
GENEVA/MANILA: Reports of summary executions, including of children, are multiplying in the Philippines, three United Nations experts said on Monday, urging the government to investigate and curb “spiralling rights violations”.
The condemnation is the latest by human rights advocates against Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, whose 13-month-old administration has triggered widespread alarm, notably over his deadly drug war.
“The Government of the Philippines must urgently address growing reports of human rights violations, including murder, threats against indigenous peoples and the summary execution of children,” the panel of three experts said in a statement.
One of the experts cited is the UN’s special rapporteur on extra-judicial killings, Agnes Callamard, who has previously faced harsh criticism from Duterte loyalists over an unofficial visit she made to the Philippines in May that the government claims was not authorised.
“We are shocked by the increasing levels of violence,” the group added, specifically highlighting threats against human rights defenders, trade union leaders along with those fighting to protect land rights against business interests.
“All these cases must be investigated thoroughly and perpetrators should be brought to justice,” added the statement, co-signed by Michel Forst, the UN expert on human rights defenders and Ms Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, the special rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children.
While the statement did not specifically cite Duterte’s drug war, that campaign has been a key element of what the experts called “a climate of prevailing violence” in the Philippines.
The president last week vowed no let up in his battle against illegal drugs, during which police have reported killing nearly 3,200 people.
More than 2,000 other people have been killed in drug-related crimes, according to police data.
Rights groups say many of those victims have been killed by vigilante death squads linked to the government, and that Duterte may be overseeing a crime against humanity.
7 headless bodies found: Security forces found seven headless bodies on Monday believed to be the victims of kidnappings in two towns on the southern island of Basilan, a stronghold of the pro-IS Abu Sayyaf group, police said.
The military said the victims did not belong to a group of 23 captives being held for ransom by Abu Sayyaf, about a dozen of whom are foreign sailors seized from cargo ships and slowmoving barges in the Sulu Sea.
The bodies were identified by the clothes the victims had been wearing when they were taken and identity cards found on them, police said.
They were abducted at gunpoint two weeks ago by a man called Furiji Indama, a sub-commander of Isnilon Hapilon, the so-called Southeast Asian “emir” of the IS group, who had been motivated by anger at damage to his rubber plantation, regional police spokeswoman Tara Leah Cuyco said.
“He suspected these men to be among chainsaw operators who destroyed his rubber trees,” Cuyco said. “He ordered them kidnapped and their houses burned down.”
The military has been struggling to wipe out Abu Sayyaf, a small, violent group known for extortion, piracy and kidnapping.