The president of the Philippines
Rodrigo Duterte is carrying out a “large-scale murdering enterprise” and should be investigated by the UN for crimes against humanity, according to a new Amnesty report into his so-called war on drugs.
It has been three years since Duterte pledged to wipe out drug abuse in the
Philippines by giving police unprecedented powers and near total impunity to kill any suspected drug addicts or dealers. Amnesty’s new report detailed how the systematic killing of the urban poor has continued on such a scale it now amounts to crimes against humanity.
The report told of nightly incidents where police would shoot defenceless suspects, or abduct them and take them to other locations where they would be shot. It found crime scenes were tampered with, evidence fabricated or planted and there was no accountability for the killing of suspects.
According to the report, local officials were put under huge pressure by police to come up with vast numbers of names to put on the “drugs watch list” without needing to provide any evidence they were using or selling drugs and without any legal process.
Interviews by Amnesty told harrowing stories of figures such as Jovan Magtanong, a 30-year-old father of three, who was shot and killed by police when he was sleeping next to his children. Police had been looking for another man. Officers later claimed he had drugs and a gun on him, which witnesses refuted. “They killed him like an animal”, a family member told Amnesty.
