By Stephanie Nebehay
GENEVA, Sept 22 (Reuters) - U.N. rights experts and
activists called on Tuesday for launching an international
investigation into unlawful killings in the so-called war on
drugs in the Philippines and for the International Criminal
Court to step up its preliminary probe.
Sanctions should be slapped on officials responsible for
inciting killings or failing to prevent them, said Agnes
Callamard, U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or
arbitrary executions.
Callamard, speaking on a panel, read out a statement issued
by 32 U.N. experts in late June, which she told Reuters "is as
relevant as ever" as the Human Rights Council meets in Geneva.
Tens of thousands of people in the Philippines may have
been killed in the war on drugs since mid-2016 amid "near
impunity" for police and incitement to violence by top
officials, the United Nations said in a landmark report in June.
The chief presidential legal counsel and presidential
spokesman did not respond immediately to Reuters' requests for
comment. Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said last June that
the "rehashed claims" of impunity were unfounded.
The U.N. report said the drugs crackdown, launched by
President Rodrigo Duterte after he won election on a platform of
crushing crime, has been marked by police orders and high-level
rhetoric that may have been interpreted as "permission to kill".
Callamard urged the 47-member forum to "establish an
on-the-ground international investigation".
"I call on the International Criminal Court to prioritise
the completion of its preliminary examination of the situation
in the Philippines," she said.
She urged states to "apply sanctions against individual
Filipino officials who have committed, incited or who have
failed to investigate or prevent human rights violations
including arbitrary killings."
Iceland, working with the Philippines, is proposing a
resolution for consideration at the Council next week. But
activists said that the draft text, which calls for technical
cooperation, was weak as it fails to establish an international
investigative mechanism.
"The Philippines is hell-bent on getting itself off of the
Human Rights Council agenda by any means except for actually
improving the human rights situation on the ground," said Laila
Matar of Human Rights Watch.
Rachel Chhoa-Howard, Amnesty International researcher, said:
"Despite increased international attention over the years,
killings continue and there appears to be no end in sight to the
trail of blood."
"Amnesty and others definitely believe that the situation
meets the threshold of crimes against humanity," she said,
urging the Hague-based ICC to complete its probe this year.
(Reporting and writing by Stephanie Nebehay; additional
reporting by Neil Jerome Morales in Manila, editing by Raissa
Kasolowsky)