MANILA, Philippines — Iceland submitted a draft resolution that will prod the United Nations Human Rights Council to call for actions on the alleged human rights violations in the Philippines.
Iceland filed a two-page draft resolution Thursday, requesting UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet to prepare a “comprehensive” written report on the human rights situation in the Philippines that would be presented during the council’s 44th session. UNHRC is now on its 41st session.
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The draft resolution also calls on the Philippine government “to take all necessary measures to prevent extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances, to carry out impartial investigations and to hold perpetrators accountable in accordance with international norms and standards on due process and the rule of law.”
The text also asked the Philippine government to cooperate with UN agencies and mechanisms by facilitating country visits and preventing acts of intimidation or retaliation.
According to a Reuters report, more than two dozen countries—mainly European states—backed the draft resolution.
The 47-member council is expected to vote on the resolution before its three-week session ends on July 12. The Philippines is a member of the Human Rights Council.
Last year, Iceland also called on the Philippines and its investigators to probe without conditions the killings linked to the government’s anti-narcotics campaign. The statement was signed by 37 countries.
In 2017, 39 countries led by Iceland slammed what it dubbed as “culture of impunity” in the Philippines.
Bachelet, in her opening statement at the 41st session of the council last June 24, said the “extraordinarily high number of deaths” and “persistent reports of extrajudicial killings” in the drug war continue in the Philippines.
She said she also welcomes the call of UN special rapporteurs for the Human Rights Council to take action on what they called a sharp deterioration of human rights in the Philippines.
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The Philippine government usually dismisses expression of concern and calls for an investigation from international bodies as acts of meddling in the country’s internal affairs. Even President Rodrigo Duterte has repeatedly slammed the UN and human rights groups for criticisms on his brutal drug war.
In a statement Friday, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said the government “need not be told by anyone, including the UN or any of its agencies, to stop so-called 'extrajudicial executions' in our war on drugs because it has never been the policy of the government to tolerate the killing of illegal drug suspects who submit themselves peacefully to our law enforcement authorities.”
Guevarra, however, said the government is prepared to face any investigation “to disabuse the minds of those who rely on or give undue credence to selective, if not biased, second-hand information.”
Figures from the Philippine National Police earlier released this month put the number of ‘drug personalities’ killed in law enforcement operations at 6,600. But some rights groups have estimates of as many as 27,000 killed.
A three-year-old girl from Rizal province was the latest casualty of the brutal war on the drugs. The girl was killed during an operation that targeted her father.
Police claimed the girl was used as a human shield by his father—the subject of the drug bust operation—but her mother refuted this and said they were sleeping when the cops arrived.