Slain activist Alvarez received death threats for years –rights group

Zara Alvarez, a human rights paralegal, had been receiving death threats for years before she was killed in Bacolod last week, a rights group said on Monday.

The Aktionsbündnis Menschenrechte-Philippinen (AMP) said Alvarez was a well-known human rights activist and community organizer.

“Zara Alvarez had been receiving death threats for years,” the group said in a statement.

The AMP said the death threats against Alvarez started during the term of former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, which eventually led to a “trumped-up” murder charge and her illegal detention.

In February 2018, Alvarez was once again accused of being a communist-terrorist by the Department of Justice.

“For years, the AMP has been pointing out that the Philippine Government, under the guise of counterterrorism, brutally cracks down on human rights defenders and other civil society players,” the AMP said.

“Zara Alvarez is one of many victims of the deteriorating human rights situation in the Philippines,” it added.

The group also said that the Philippines has become “one of the deadliest countries for human rights defenders worldwide” under President Rodrigo Duterte, with at least 182 cases of extrajudicial killings since June 2016.

“The numbers of these killings are continuously rising. In the past 18 months alone 48 human rights defenders were murdered.”

Malacañang earlier said claims that state forces were behind the killings of activists were “unfounded.” — DVM, GMA News