KALAHAN DENG
The Philippines’ firebrand President Rodrigo Duterte swept to power last year vowing to rid his country of drugs-related crime. Instead the streets he pledged to clean have run with the blood of over 7000 citizens murdered in an outbreak of vigilante violence.
A report released on Tuesday by human rights group Amnesty International appears to confirm what many had feared – that the police may be complicit in this breakdown of justice, killing suspected drugs users rather than allowing them recourse to the courts.
The 68-page report, based on the testimonies of self-proclaimed paid killers, an unidentified police officer and multiple eye-witnesses, is damning.