Drug Users Aren’t Human, Says Philippines’ Duterte
Sounds like one of the alt-right’s “Second Amendment solutions.” Could this be coming to a street near you? I have long thought that a President Trump might well be able to incite extra-legal mobs to do his dirty work when law enforcement and the military balk. He doesn’t have a uniformed SA but he does have the NRA, the crazed ammosexual sub-culture, and the loose but pervasive network provided by radical right-wing churches. Add in some sovereign sheriff nuts and fellow travelers in local government to provide a fig leaf of legality and you could have real trouble. This is still possible even if Trump loses since the RWNJ hate-media will go apeshit with their fraud claims.
Manila (AFP) - Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who is waging a bloody war on crime, has justified the large-scale killing of drug users by suggesting the victims were not human. Duterte, who has seen about two thousand people killed since he was elected in May, made the remarks late Friday as he shrugged off the United Nations’ concerns over human rights in his country.
“Crime against humanity? In the first place, I’d like to be frank with you: are they humans? What is your definition of a human being?” he told soldiers while visiting an army camp, according to transcripts of his speech released afterwards.
“Human rights? Use it properly in the right context if you have the brains,” he added. “You cannot wage a war without killing,” Duterte said, adding that many drug users were beyond rehabilitation.
His remarks came after various UN officials, including Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in June condemned his apparent support for extra-judicial killings. The UN special rapporteur on summary executions, Agnes Callamard, said earlier this month that his directives “amount to incitement to violence and killing, a crime under international law”. Duterte’s comments come after his national police chief Ronald Dela Rosa on Friday urged drug users to kill their traffickers and burn their homes. “Why don’t you give them a visit, pour gasoline on their homes and set these on fire to register your anger,” Dela Rosa said. He later apologised for his remarks. But Duterte defended Dela Rosa, saying “that’s my style. He is following it”.