Thank you for having me today, as it becomes even more dangerous every day for human rights defenders, with an epidemic of rights violations in the Philippines.
Our colleague, Zara Alvarez, is among the 15 human rights workers of Karapatan who were killed in the last five years, out of the 394 civilians killed in the course of the Duterte government’s counter-insurgency campaign. The majority of those killed are land rights, indigenous and environmental defenders. These figures add to the thousands killed in the government’s drug war, which is creating a climate of fear and impunity in the country.
Many more defenders, including myself, face judicial harassment for trumped-up charges based on perjured testimonies, planted evidence or fabricated grounds. The independence of courts is questioned for complicity in issuances of questionable search and arrest warrants against defenders that result in their arbitrary arrests, detention, or worse—their killings. Because of these cases, there are currently 703 political prisoners in the country; 68% of them have been arrested under this administration.
Women human rights defenders are among those killed, arrested and detained. We eat death, rape and threats of sexual violence for breakfast every day, online and offline. Community pantries, relief and fact-finding missions, universities, journalists, doctors, lawyers, church people, members of the opposition, the Commission on Human Rights and many more receive what UN Special Rapporteur Mary Lawlor called context-specific death threats in the form of red-tagging.
I emphasize that these occur in the context of the government’s counter-insurgency campaign, with its whole-of-nation approach to stemming the armed rebellion in the country. In our view, this is a murderous campaign in violation of the principle of distinction between civilians and combatants under international humanitarian law. It is a militarist or strongman approach, which trumps civilian authority and interests.
From this policy stems measures that restrict democratic and civic spaces, such as the recent counterterror legislation. A national task force to end local communist armed conflict is conducting and wielding the baton for these wholesale attacks on civilians, particularly human rights defenders, in the crackdown on dissent.
In the midst of this, there is inadequacy or lack of domestic mechanisms that encourage victims for the rendering of justice and accountability. Courts deny legal protection for defenders, resulting in more harmful impacts on our lives, security and liberty. We are among those who sought legal protection and our colleagues were killed. We continue to be threatened and harassed and a reprisal suit is brought before us.
No perpetrator has been prosecuted nor convicted in all the cases I mentioned. We implore the Canadian government to take action on these concerns with urgency, as our country further descends into an authoritarian state.
Thank you.