Karapatan calls for removal of Philippines from UN rights body
MANILA, Philippines — The United Nations Human Rights Council should remove the Philippines from its ranks and probe the country for alleged human rights violations, rights group Karapatan said Monday.
Karapatan Secretary General Cristina Palabay called on the UNHRC to initiate an international fact-finding mission and commission on inquiry into the human rights situation in the country.
Palabay said such intervention is necessary because of “the Duterte administration’s stubborn refusal to acknowledge its accountability on the numerous killings as a result of its war on drugs and its attacks on human rights defenders and civilians as a consequence of counterinsurgency program Oplan Kapayapaan and martial law in Mindanao.”
In a joint statement delivered by Iceland, 38 member-states of the UNHRC on June 19 urged the Philippines to stop the Duterte administration’s brutal war on drugs, while also calling for an external investigation of all related deaths.
“The Philippine government responds to domestic and international criticism on its human rights violations with thuggish hubris, blatant denial of its crimes and utmost disregard of international human rights instruments and international humanitarian law,” Palabay said.
“It is ironic, if not laughable, that the Philippine government even holds the vice presidency of the Human Rights Council’s Bureau,” she added.
READ: 38 UN rights council members urge Philippines to stop drug war deaths
Last week, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said the country will not follow the United States' move to withdraw from the rights body.
Worsening human rights trends under Duterte
The rights group also pointed out that the Philippine National Police’s arrests and detention of “tambays” or street loiterers are illegal and “have infringed on the people’s right to due process and mobility.”
“As if the war on drugs is not enough, now persons who are merely walking around for any purpose or those who are driven to the streets because of poverty are being arrested and detained, while one of them ended up dead,” Palabay said, referring to 22-year-old Genesis Argoncillo’s case.
Argoncillo was arrested in front of his home in Barangay Sauyom Novaliches for not wearing a shirt. Four days later, his body was found dead bearing bruises and marks allegedly received from a beating.
Duterte earlier ordered the PNP to detain tambays as he deemed them as “potential trouble for the public,” but later denied having said so and clarified that he ordered authorities only to accost and not arrest.
Karapatan also said it has documented the killing of three peasant leaders and the illegal arrest of at least seven individuals, which includes a peasant activist and volunteer teachers of a Lumad school in Mindanao.
“We call on the international community to continue its support for the Filipino people’s calls and campaigns against the tyrannical rule of Duterte. Such forms of international solidarity are most needed by the growing number of victims of this murderous regime,” Palabay said. — by Philstar.com intern Ali Ian Marcelino V. Biong
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