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Churches body urged Philippines Government to address “worsening human rights situation”

The World Council of Churches has urged the Philippines Government to address the “worsening human rights situation and increasing violence and impunity in the country”.

In a statement issued this week, the WCC’s Central Committee said they were “deeply alarmed by the escalating violence, extrajudicial killings and other human rights abuses in the Philippines in the context of President Rodrigo Duterte’s ‘war on drugs’” as well as “the continuing imposition of martial law in Mindanao, and non-tolerance of principled dissent and criticism”.

Noting that the ‘war on drugs’ continues to take its toll “mostly on poor people”, the committee’s statement cited data from the Philippine National Police showing there have been 22,893 killings classified as “deaths under inquiry” since 2016.

“The human toll of the ‘war on drugs’ is severe. The killings must be investigated, stopped and all violations prosecuted,” the committee said.

The WCC committee also drew attention to the “social and economic” effects of martial law in Mindanao, stating that the siege of the city of Marawi was continuing to force people from their homes. They include Indigenous people whose leaders, it said, were being harassed, schools destroyed or turned into military outposts, and teachers vilified.

The committee also said it had heard of “government efforts to delegitimise the work of human rights defenders”, among them a court petition filed by the Department of Justice naming some 600 people as terrorists.

The committee urged the government “to end the culture of impunity, order the investigation of all killings, and drop the Department of Justice’s petition to declare activists as terrorists”. It also reiterated calls for the lifting of martial law in Mindanao and for the resumption of formal peace talks between the government and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines.

In other statements released this week, the committee, in light of the 70th anniversary of United Nations’ Universal Declaration on Human Rights, reaffirmed the WCC’s commitment to the principles of human rights and called for churches to re-prioritise their support for them.

The committee has also noted with concern the “deepening political, human rights and humanitarian crisis” in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and said the Colombian Government needed to act to fully implement unfulfilled aspects of its landmark peace agreement with former FARC rebels.

 

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