[av_one_full first min_height=” vertical_alignment=” space=” custom_margin=” margin=’0px’ padding=’0px’ border=” border_color=” radius=’0px’ background_color=” src=” background_position=’top left’ background_repeat=’no-repeat’ animation=”]
[av_heading heading=’Palace tells UN: See for yourself’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
Malacañang invites UN to probe drug-related killings
[/av_heading]
[av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=”]
MANILA – President Rodrigo Duterte’s top aide has officially sent an invitation to the United Nations (UN) to probe the rising number of extrajudicial killings allegedly linked to the government’s intensified campaign against illegal drugs, Palace officials announced on Wednesday.
The office of executive secretary Salvado Medialdea has sent the letter to UN special rapporteur Agnes Callamard, and the Palace is just “awaiting her (Callamard’s) response,” presidential spokesperson Ernesto Abella said.
“The Palace urged the UN rapporteur to also include in her investigation the killings of law enforcers by drug suspects so she can obtain an accurate perspective of the drug problem in the country,” Abella said.
In the letter, the Palace says Duterte should be allowed to ask Callamard about the investigation.
“Since it is this administration that is maligned as being behind these extrajudicial killings, due process requires that the President of the Philippine Republic, be given the opportunity to propound his own questions which have been nagging him for some time,” reads the letter signed by Medialdea.
Duterte is “entitled to know the motive for the investigation, and why the focus is on the Philippines when there are other nations responsible for the death of innocent and defenseless individuals elsewhere in the world,” the letter added.
The President had said as much when he first challenged Callamard to a debate in a news briefing in Davao City on Aug. 21, and again – this time with with representatives of another critic, the European Union – on Sept. 22. He said then that he wants to field questions to them as well in a broadcast “open forum” at the “Senate or the arts center.”
The rest of the letter urged Callamard to “take a fresh look” at the Philippine situation, claiming that media reports on extrajudicial killings inaccurately attribute the killings to the Duterte government.
The letter asserts that the term “extrajudicial” is being used by Duterte’s “critics and detractors” to describe the drug-related killings.
The Palace reminded Callamard that Duterte, in his inaugural speech, committed to fight illegal drugs by “all means that the law allows.”
“It is with this context that we invite you to visit our country and see for yourself whether or not the criticisms are legally and factually sound,” says the letter.
Callamard, UN special rapporteur on summary executions, in August called out Duterte for endorsing the killing of drug suspects, describing the new president’s statements as a “license to kill.”
”Directives of this nature are irresponsible in the extreme and amount to incitement to violence and killing, a crime under international law. It is effectively a license to kill,” Callamard warned.
”Intentional lethal use of force is only allowed when strictly unavoidable in order to protect life and should not be used for common policing objectives,” she added. (With a report from Rappler/ABS-CBN News)
[/av_textblock]
[/av_one_full]
