Cristina “Tinay” Palabay, secretary general of Karapatan (Photo from her Facebook page)
The leftist human rights group Karapatan filed with UN officials on Saturday another complaint of supposed extrajudicial killings (EJKs) arising from the government’s counterinsurgency program.
In separate letters of allegation to UN special rapporteurs Agnes Callamard and Michel Forst, Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay reported 25 more extrajudicial killings.
The killings involved activists, mostly members of local peasant organizations in Mindanao, from April to September, Palabay said.
“We allege that state security forces are primarily responsible for these killings,” she said.
Government program
Palabay said the killings were allegedly part of a government program that makes no distinction between armed and unarmed civilians, and provides a pretext for the arbitrary tagging of individuals, groups and movements as “enemies of the state.”
“Duterte’s recent pronouncements and direct orders on the crackdown on progressive groups and on attacks against human rights defenders, political dissenters and ordinary folks embolden state forces to further violate people’s rights,” Palabay said.
“From one counterinsurgency program to another, cases of extrajudicial killings against peasants, indigenous peoples, Moro, workers, women and youth continue to be committed with impunity under the murderous Duterte regime,” she said.
It was Karapatan’s second allegation of extrajudicial killing after it reported last April 47 cases of alleged EJKs.
Though the Palace denied that the killings constituted a “policy” of the Duterte administration, Palabay pointed out that the continuing killings pointed to “a clearer view of state fascism.”
“We reiterate our challenge to the Duterte regime to introduce appropriate measures to stop these attacks and carry out impartial investigations on cases submitted,” she added.