UN rights body ‘appalled’ by killing of 9 activists in Calabarzon

GENEVA — The United Nations said Tuesday it was "appalled" by the apparent arbitrary killing of nine activists in the Philippines by security forces targeting alleged communist insurgents.

Eight men and one woman were killed as the authorities executed search warrants before dawn on Sunday, the UN rights office said.

"We are appalled by the apparently arbitrary killing of nine activists," Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, told reporters in Geneva.

The killings happened in simultaneous police and military operations in the Batangas, Cavite, Laguna and Rizal provinces surrounding Manila.

The spokeswoman said that among those killed were labor rights, fishing community, housing and indigenous rights activists, while six people were reportedly arrested.

The Philippines government told the UN rights office that the operation was part of its counter-insurgency campaign against the New People's Army (NPA), the armed wing of the Communist party.

Progressive groups launched a protest against the killings on the same day, which they have begun calling "Bloody Sunday," while the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) said that the individuals killed or arrested were legal activists.

"We are deeply worried that these latest killings indicate an escalation in violence, intimidation, harassment and 'red-tagging' of human rights defenders," said Shamdasani.

"Red-tagging" means being accused of being a front for the NPA. The government has "red-tagged" schools, accusing them of being communist recruitment hotspots. Last year, two women—Mary Rose Sancelan, a doctor in Negros Oriental; and Zara Alvarez, a human rights worker in Negros Occidental—feared for their lives after being red-tagged. They were both gunned down in the street.

UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet's June 2020 report on the Philippines said there was a serious lack of due process in police operations, and near-total impunity for the use of lethal force by the police and the military.

Sunday's deaths came two days after President Rodrigo Duterte—whose controversial drug war has cost thousands of lives—repeated an order for security forces to "ignore human rights" and kill Communist rebels.

Vice President Leni Robredo issued a statement bluntly calling the killings a "massacre," adding, "They have to face each of us if they want to stop us from telling the truth: The Filipino people deserve better than this murderous regime."

The Commission on Human rights said it will investigate the killings.

Hundreds of activists, journalists and lawyers have been killed since Duterte took power in 2016, rights groups say.

Many died after being accused of supporting the decades-old Maoist insurgency that the populist president has vowed to crush before the end of his six-year term in 2022. — Agence France-Presse