Responding to Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte’s and the police’s announcements that they are suspending anti-drug operations, Amnesty International’s Crisis Response Director Tirana Hassan said:
“Even as the police have vowed to shut their operations down, President Duterte has pledged to continue his so-called ‘war on drugs’. These contradictory statements offer little hope that the wave of extrajudicial executions that has claimed more than a thousand lives a month will end.
“It is no secret that corruption is rife among the police. As our report, out tomorrow, shows, the people who are tasked with upholding law and order have planted ‘evidence’, robbed victims’ homes and falsified reports. But the ultimate responsibility for the police’s actions lies at the very top of government. The problem is not a few bad policemen but the government’s deadly anti-drug policy.”
Background
Amnesty International’s new report, “If you are poor, you are killed”: Extrajudicial executions in the Philippines’ ‘war on drugs’, details how the police have systematically targeted mostly poor and defenceless people across the country while planting “evidence”, recruiting deaths squads, stealing from the people they kill and fabricating official incident reports.
Incited by the rhetoric of President Rodrigo Duterte, the police, killers on their payroll, and unknown armed persons have slain more than a thousand people a month under the guise of a national campaign to eradicate drugs. Since President Rodrigo Duterte came to office seven months ago, there have been more than 7,000 drug-related killings, with the police directly killing at least 2,500 alleged drug offenders.
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For more media inquiries, contact Jacob Kuehn, Media Relations
613-744-7667 ext 236 // jkuehn@amnesty.ca
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