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The resolution on the human rights situation in the Philippines recently adopted by the European Parliament* is a “welcome step towards reckoning and accountability over the Duterte administration’s blatant disregard of its obligation to uphold human rights and civil liberties in the country,” Philippine human rights alliance Karapatan stated, as the group urged the international community to “continue to stand with human rights defenders in the Philippines and the Filipino people who suffer in this worsening crisis of political repression and State

As the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) opened its 45th session today, September 14, 2020, various Philippine and international human rights groups and advocates called on the UNHRC to “exercise its mandate and urgently create an independent and impartial investigative mechanism on the rampant extrajudicial killings and human rights violations” in today’s Global Day of Action following the spate of killings of several activists and human rights defenders over the past months.

During the 44th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UN HRC) in June 2020, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet reported the widespread and systematic human rights violations in the Philippines. The High Commissioner found that domestic mechanisms have failed to ensure accountability, and that there is persistent impunity for human rights violations.

Human rights alliance Karapatan said that “while criminals and murderers like Joseph Scott Pemberton are given the express lane to freedom by none other than the highest official of the country, our own courts continue to cruelly neglect the petition of elderly, sick, and pregnant political prisoners for humanitarian release” as the group assailed the decision of the Supreme Court to remand the said petition to lower courts.

Duterte has pardoned and will already release US soldier Joseph Scott Pemberton, and now they want to free another criminal? Rafael Alunan must be delusional to even give this outrageous suggestion to free the ruthless butcher Jovito Palparan, who is convicted for the the kidnapping and serious illegal detention of desaparecidos Karen Empeño and Sherlyn Cadapan  — on top of his bloody track record of human rights violations in leading the killings, abductions, and tortures of hundreds of activists and civilians.