Philippines’ Duterte gives middle finger to EU for condemning his brutal crackdown on crime

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has launched a profanity-filled tirade against the European Union, in his latest riposte to international criticism of the rising death toll in his brutal crackdown on crime.

Duterte punctuated his insults with a rude sign – raising his middle finger – after the European Parliament condemned “the current wave of extrajudicial executions and killings in the Philippines”.

“I say to them, f*** you. You’re doing it in atonement for your sins,” he told local officials in his southern home city of Davao late Tuesday in comments filmed by broadcaster ABS-CBN.

Since he took office on June 30 about 3,000 people have been killed, about a third of them suspects shot dead by police and the rest murdered by unidentified attackers, according to police statistics.