UN rebukes Duterte for threats

GENEVA – The United Nations human rights office condemned yesterday attacks and threats made against its investigators by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and by senior Burundian officials.

“Last week Mr. Duterte threatened to slap (UN special rapporteur Agnes) Callamard if she investigates him for alleged extrajudicial killings,” UN human rights spokesman Rupert Colville told a news briefing.

“He made the same threat against her in June after she criticized his ‘war on drugs’ campaign which has left thousands dead,” he added, referring to remarks made after her visit in May in an unofficial capacity to attend an academic conference.

The Supreme Court yesterday began hearing arguments in a petition to declare Duterte’s deadly war on drugs, denounced by rights groups across the world, as unconstitutional.

Callamard, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, is an independent expert reporting to the UN Human Rights Council. Her planned visit to the Philippines last December was called off because she refused to accept Duterte’s conditions.

Recently she has also been subjected to a “tirade of online abuse, including physical threats, during what appears to be a prolonged and well-orchestrated trolling operation across the internet and on social media,” Colville said.

“We condemn this treatment of Ms. Callamard and the disrespect it shows to the Human Rights Council that appointed her in the strongest terms,” he added.

On Burundi, the UN rights office has written to the Bujumbura government to demand that officials stop “threatening with prosecution” members of a UN Commission of Inquiry that found Burundian officials at the highest level should be held accountable for crimes humanity, Colville said. against