Amnesty International strongly condemns recent statements made by senior officials in the Duterte administration, attempting to link human rights organisations in the country to “drug lords.” The allegations are the latest dangerous attempt by the government to target human rights defenders and delegitimise their work, instead of ensuring accountability for widespread and systematic human rights violations in the ‘war on drugs’. The Philippine government must end its campaign of harassment and intimidation of human rights defenders and retract its latest statements, which place the safety of those that criticize the government, in peril.
