‘Go ahead and kill drug addicts’: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte issues fresh call for vigilante violence
Duterte also urged communist rebels to use their ‘kangaroo courts’ to convict and execute drug traffickers.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Friday urged communist rebels to start killing drug traffickers, adding another layer to a controversial war on crime in which he has warned thousands will die.
Duterte won May’s election in a landslide after a campaign dominated by his pledge to end crime within six months, promising to do so by unleashing security forces with shoot-to-kill orders.
In his inauguration speech on Thursday, Duterte insisted his adherence to the rule of law was “uncompromising”, apparently seeking to assuage concerns from human rights groups that he planned to orchestrate mass extrajudicial killings.
Use your kangaroo courts to kill them to speed up the solution to our problem
But on Friday, Duterte called on communist rebels waging one of Asia’s longest insurgencies to hold their own guerrilla court hearings and then carry out executions.
“Drugs have reached the hinterlands ... what if you use your kangaroo courts to kill them to speed up the solution to our problem,” Duterte, a lawyer and former city prosecutor, said in a speech before the military’s top brass in Manila.
The communists’ armed wing, the 4,000-strong New People’s Army, is known for assassinating civilians deemed to have committed so-called crimes against the people. However, its courts and summary executions are illegal.
In a late-night speech on Thursday to a slum community in Manila attended by only a few journalists, Duterte called on ordinary Filipinos to kill drug addicts, which is also illegal.
“If you know of any addicts, go ahead and kill them yourself,” Duterte told a crowd of about 500 people.