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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, December 11) – A panel tasked with investigating all police anti-drug operations that resulted in deaths in the country could release its preliminary report next week, the Justice Department said on Friday.
The report would contain “initial findings in a couple of provinces with the highest incidence of police operations that resulted in deaths, particularly in Bulacan and Pampanga,” Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said in a statement sent to the press.
Initially, the agency was to publish an evaluation report last month on more than 5,000 anti-drug operations that resulted in killings. But Guevarra now says they don’t have a timeline for a full report as their “movements are severely hampered by this pandemic.”
The panel was created in July following a report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, which found “grave human rights violations” in the conduct of the Philippines campaign against illegal drugs.
“The campaign against illegal drugs is carried out without due respect for the rule of law, due process and the human rights of people who may be consuming or selling drugs,” said Bachelet in her report to the Human Rights Council. in June.
In September, he called for an end to the policies and rhetoric that were said to have led to the deaths of drug suspects.
Data from the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency showed that from July 1, 2016 to September 30, 2020, at least 5,903 people died during anti-drug operations. Local and international human rights groups have said that thousands more may have lost their lives in alleged extrajudicial killings since President Rodrigo Duterte launched his war on drugs.
Earlier this month, Duterte said he is ready to face any potential case for his bloody war on drugs. He also maintained that he does not care what human rights groups say about the killings and alleged human rights violations in his anti-drug campaign.
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