UN rights council urged to probe attacks vs Filipino environmental defenders
MANILA, Philippines — An environmental group called on the United Nations Human Rights Council Monday to investigate the worsening attacks against environmental defenders in the Philippines.
Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment asked UNHRC member states to launch a probe into the “human rights atrocities affecting more than 19,000 environmental defenders” under the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte.
“The UNHRC must somehow probe attacks [that] undermine the work of these defenders in protecting more than six million hectares of critical landscapes across the Philippines,” Clemente Bautista, Kalikasan PNE international network coordinator, said.
The 45th session of the UN Human Rights Council starts Monday in Geneva. It will run until October 6.
The Philippines was named the deadliest country in Asia for environmental and land activists in 2019 and the second most dangerous nation in the world behind Colombia, according to international watchdog Global Witness. At least 43 deaths were recorded last year, most of whom were farmers, indigenous leaders and government workers tasked with protecting the environment.
Nearly 90% of the killings in 2019 occurred in resource-rich Mindano and Negros Island.
Global Witness said in its report released in July that the “relentless vilification of defenders by the government and widespread impunity for their attackers” may be driving the increase in killings.
The government has condemned some of these attacks, with the Palace saying it "[denounces] any form of violence perpetuated against citizens, including activists. We are a nation of laws; and violence has no place in any civilized society."
But its task force against the communist insurgency has had no qualms in labeling activists, including environmental advocates, as enemies of the state or as being in league with rebels.
RELATED: Labeling dissent as rebellion 'institutionalized, normalized' in Philippines — UN report
Attacks during COVID-19 crisis
At least 557 environmental defenders experienced physical assault, illegal arrest, harassment lawsuits and other human rights violations while parts of the country are on varying level of lockdowns put in place to spread the spread of the novel coronavirus, Kalikasan PNE said.
“Amid the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, the Duterte administration is more bent on silencing those who oppose their aggressive pursuit of mining and other destructive so-called ‘economic recovery’ strategies,” Bautista said.
“The recent reversals on mine closures and suspension orders, the legalization of incinerators, and the anomalous white sand dump and fill in Manila Bay, are the latest environmentally destructive COVID-19 era actions under President Duterte. This threatens even more conflicts involving environmental defenders. Now more than ever, the UN Human Rights Council needs to step in,” he added.
Rights groups also called for UN intervention to investigate and end what they called the worsening human rights situation in the Philippines, following the killings of activists and human rights defenders over the past months.
In the council's 44th session last June, UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet said the government's war on drugs and incitement to violence from the nation's top leaders have resulted in serious human rights violations, including “widespread and systematic” extrajudicial killings. She said the council should consider options for international accountability measures if there will be an absence of clear outcomes from domestic mechanisms.
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