Group slams PNP over Sept. 21 riot – BusinessWorld Online
A GLOBAL human rights coalition on Tuesday condemned the Philippine National Police’s (PNP) alleged forceful dispersal of rioters during the Sept. 21 anti-corruption protest.
“The demonstrations were a legitimate outpouring of people’s anger at a kleptocratic government,” International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) Chairperson Peter Murphy said in a statement.
“The youth, urban poor, and workers who joined the standoff in the historic Mendiola Bridge were not ‘thugs.’ They are citizens whose communities are drowning in poverty and floodwaters while the powerful enrich themselves,” he added.
On Sunday, thousands of Filipinos marched in the capital in the biggest protest so far against the multibillion-peso flood control scandal, turning weeks of online outrage over corruption into mass street demonstrations that rattled the political establishment.
A riot later occurred in Mendiola, Manila where police had led to the apprehension of about 216 individuals.
The ICHRP said that some of the protesters were met “brutal acts of dispersal from the police.”
“The injured and arrested Filipino youth and the urban poor are being unjustly labeled as criminals by authorities,” the human rights group added.
They had called on the international community and human rights defenders to condemn the violent dispersal, mass arrests, and alleged death of a protester in Mendiola.
The ICHRP also urged the immediate release of all detained protesters and provide medical care to the injured.
The groups said that organizations should provide support for bail, legal assistance, medical treatment, and the needs of victims’ families. — Adrian H. Halili