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OVER 100 DRUG SUSPECTS KILLED
Human rights lawyer asks Duterte to stop 'nuclear explosion of violence'
A human rights lawyer on Friday called on President Rodrigo Duterte to put a stop on the “nuclear explosion of violence” spawned by his war on crime.
Lawyer Jose Manuel Diokno, national chairman of Free Legal Assistance Group, said the violence is now spiraling out of control and creating a nation without judges, law, and reason.
Based on Philippine National Police (PNP) records, over 100 drug suspects have been killed since May 10, many of them shot when they allegedly tried to resist arrest and grab the gun of the arresting officers.
Diokno frowned on this, saying it gives too much power to policemen.
“Do we really want to give the man with the gun the power to judge who are criminals and to kill them? To decide who is bad and who is good, who deserves to live and who deserves to die?” Diokno said in a blog posted at the website of Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, where he is a trustee.
“We might as well disband our courts, dissolve the Department of Justice, and abolish Congress. For there really is no need for law when the barrel of the gun dispenses justice,” he added.
He said Duterte has created a bandwagon of hate, “a mob mentality that not only condones but encourages the taking of lives ‘because they deserve it’.”
“Yes, drug pushers destroy lives. Yes, criminals behave like animals. But are those who kill them any better? And will the killing stop there?” Diokno said.
He said the people have seen what a mob can do in the hands of a tyrant who knows no law but his own.
“Lest we forget, the first person that [former President Ferdinand] Marcos executed was a drug pusher. But did he stop there?” he said.
Diokno, whose family suffered under Martial Law, said by the time Marcos was ousted, he was responsible for killing thousands upon thousands of people whose only fault was their belief in justice, the rule of law, and human rights.
“President Duterte, do not kill in my name. That is not your mandate, that is not what you were elected for,” he said.
“Yes, go after the drug cartels and criminal syndicates, the corrupt, the criminals among us. But do it as an officer of the law you have sworn to uphold as a lawyer and a President,” he added.
Sought for comment, Presidential Communications Office head Martin Andanar said: "Atty Diokno is entitled to his own opinion." —Amita O. Legaspi/KBK/ALG, GMA News
- See more at: http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/572944/news/nation/human-rights-lawyer-asks-duterte-to-stop-nuclear-explosion-of-violence#sthash.9indnEAj.dpuf
