MANILA – A left-wing human rights organization accused Philippine security forces of killing nine activists on Sunday in coordinated attacks in four provinces.
Cristina Palabay, the leader of the human rights group Karapatan, said the raids were carried out on the activists’ homes and offices. Two of the victims, a couple, were killed while their 10-year-old son was hiding under the bed, she said.
A government spokesman could not be reached for comment, but a security official confirmed that nine people were killed in joint operations by the military and the Philippine National Police. He spoke on condition of anonymity, as he was not authorized to discuss the matter.
Philippine newspaper GMA News said a police spokesman, Lt. Col. Chitadel Gaoiran, confirmed the deaths.
Palabay said the killings took place in the provinces of Cavite, Laguna, Batangas and Rizal, all in the southern part of Luzon Island, near Manila. She said the killed activists worked for a variety of organizations, including a group working on behalf of Filipino fishermen and another campaigning for the rights of the urban poor.
“Nothing could be more appropriate than to call this day ‘Bloody Sunday’,” Palabay said in a statement. She said the killings are part of a “murderous campaign of state terrorism” by President Rodrigo Duterte’s government to crack down on legitimate dissent, and asked the country’s independent Human Rights Commission to investigate the attacks.
Three activists were arrested in the operations, including a paralegal who worked for Karapatan, Palabay said.
Duterte and other prominent Philippine officials, including military and police commanders, accused Karapatan and other leftist groups of having links to a long-standing communist insurgency in the country. Karapatan and similar groups denied being involved in the violence.
Phil Robertson, Human Rights Watch’s deputy director for Asia, said his organization was “seriously concerned” about reports of the attacks, which he said was “clearly” part of the government’s counterinsurgency campaign against communist rebels.
“The fundamental problem is that this campaign no longer distinguishes between armed rebels and non-combatant activists, labor leaders and advocates,” said Robertson in a statement.
On Friday, two days before the attacks, Duterte asked Philippine security forces to kill Communists in battle. “I told the military and the police that if they find themselves in an armed confrontation with the communist rebels, kill them, make sure to really kill them and end them if they are alive,” he said.
The Communist Party of the Philippines issued a statement urging its armed wing, the New People’s Army, which has been promoting an insurgency since 1969, to “punish the perpetrators and mentors” behind the reported attacks.