- Moderator
- #1
No surprisingly...this got way out of hand...yet, people applaude Duterte 
Philippines Temporarily Halts Anti-Drug Raids, Citing Crimes By Police
The leader of the Philippine National Police said Monday that the agency's anti-drug units would be shut down and the deadly crackdown on people who use and sell drugs would be suspended.
Instead, the crackdown will temporarily shift to inside the police force itself.
"We will cleanse our ranks ... then maybe after that, we can resume our war on drugs," police Chief Ronald Dela Rosa said, according to the BBC.
Since President Rodrigo Duterte took office last summer, more than 7,000 suspected drug users and dealers have died in extrajudicial killings in the Philippines.
Earlier this month, investigators revealed that a Korean businessman had been kidnapped by anti-drug officers and strangled to death at the national police headquarters, The Philippine Star newspaper reports. The officers "later extorted ransom money from his family under the pretense that he was alive," according to The New York Times.
The businessman's killing prompted protests in Manila. Phelim Kine of Human Rights Watch wrote that it was an "ominous indicator of the breakdown of rule of law" under Duterte, and that "Philippine police have good reason to believe that they can literally get away with murder."
Dela Rosa announced that a counter-intelligence force would be created to catch, and potentially kill, corrupt
...Duterte campaigned on the promise of death to drug dealers, saying he would dump their bodies into Manila Bay and allegedly encouraging citizens to shoot drug dealers. "Forget the laws on human rights," he told supporters in a speech before election day.
Once he was sworn in, promises hardened into policy. "Do your duty, and in the process, you kill 1,000 persons, I will protect you," Duterte told police on July 1, the day after he was sworn in, Michael Sullivan reported for NPR.
Philippines Temporarily Halts Anti-Drug Raids, Citing Crimes By Police
The leader of the Philippine National Police said Monday that the agency's anti-drug units would be shut down and the deadly crackdown on people who use and sell drugs would be suspended.
Instead, the crackdown will temporarily shift to inside the police force itself.
"We will cleanse our ranks ... then maybe after that, we can resume our war on drugs," police Chief Ronald Dela Rosa said, according to the BBC.
Since President Rodrigo Duterte took office last summer, more than 7,000 suspected drug users and dealers have died in extrajudicial killings in the Philippines.
Earlier this month, investigators revealed that a Korean businessman had been kidnapped by anti-drug officers and strangled to death at the national police headquarters, The Philippine Star newspaper reports. The officers "later extorted ransom money from his family under the pretense that he was alive," according to The New York Times.
The businessman's killing prompted protests in Manila. Phelim Kine of Human Rights Watch wrote that it was an "ominous indicator of the breakdown of rule of law" under Duterte, and that "Philippine police have good reason to believe that they can literally get away with murder."
Dela Rosa announced that a counter-intelligence force would be created to catch, and potentially kill, corrupt
...Duterte campaigned on the promise of death to drug dealers, saying he would dump their bodies into Manila Bay and allegedly encouraging citizens to shoot drug dealers. "Forget the laws on human rights," he told supporters in a speech before election day.
Once he was sworn in, promises hardened into policy. "Do your duty, and in the process, you kill 1,000 persons, I will protect you," Duterte told police on July 1, the day after he was sworn in, Michael Sullivan reported for NPR.
