AFD International and all human rights community is horrified at the scale of killing of the president Duterte pursuit of “war on drugs”. Thousands of lives has been lost in extrajudicial killings on the streets and slums of major towns and cities such as the capital city of Manila.
The president crack down on drugs has been very heavy handedly managed and it has intensified over the time since the president was elected on May 2016. A staggering number of over 12,000 deaths mostly are people who struggle to make their ends meet.
The law enforcement which has been involved in the killing and handling the situations has been accused of fabricating scenes to make them appear as an exchange of shoot outs.
Three police officers has already been found guilty of murdering a 17-year-old student in 2017.
AFD International is very alarmed at the rapidity and the ruthlessness of the government response against a problem which is very widespread in the East and South-East of the continent. According to the United Nation Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) this is a regional problem which requires a regional solution, instead of picking an easy target.
While the ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda is looking into allegations of crime against humanity, we urge Agnès Callamard the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to highlight these violations from the Philippines government, in order it returns to the rule of law and the principal of due process.
AFD International
Asia and the pacific department
31/12/2018