Since Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte took office in July, vigilantes heeding his call for street-style executions have killed more than 1,000 suspected drug pushers – that’s 300 more than have died at the hands of police.
Advertisement
Police have shot dead 665 suspects with vigilantes killing 889 others in an anti-drug crackdown, the Philippine police chief told a Senate hearing earlier in the week.
Mr Duterte has repeatedly insisted police have only killed in self defence, while maintaining the other deaths are due to drug syndicates killing each other.
The Philippine Foreign Ministry has clarified the country is not leaving the United Nations, a day after President Rodrigo Duterte threatened to quit the worldwide organization.
“We certainly are not leaving the UN”, Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr said in a news conference on Monday.
Abella said that the war on drugs “are within the our ambit of national sovereignty, national concerns, and that at this stage there was no call for the United Nations to make any investigations”.
The UN, he said, should refund the country’s financial contribution “so we can go out”.
Duterte also slammed the UN for not doing enough to stop violence during the Syrian civil war, with news broadcaster ABS-CBN reporting him as also blaming the United States.
Duterte on Friday denied that the government or police forces were involved in such killings.
“So take us out of your organization”.
Duterte was angered by statements made by a United Nations official condemning the increasing number of vigilante-type killings in the country, which have hit about 1,800.
“I will prove to the world that you are a very stupid expert”, he said, arguing that the number of drug dealers and users killed was less significant than the number of lives lost to drug-related crime. Duterte has also publicly accused many politicians for their involvement in drug trade. “I would invite maybe China, the African (nations)”, he said.
“You now, UN, if you can say one bad thing about me, I can give you ten (about you)”, he said, before mentioning the organisation’s “failure” to curb hunger and terrorism.
On Thursday, Ms Callamard said “claims to fight the illicit drug trade do not absolve the government from its worldwide legal obligations and do not shield state actors or others from responsibility for illegal killings”.
Advertisement
“The president. decries the attribution of killings to the Philippine government”, presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella told reporters.
