MANILA, Philippines – Human rights abuses allegedly committed by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) during the recent Zamboanga city conflict have reinforced the image of the military as a violator of human rights, according to an international human rights advocacy group.
Human rights research and advocacy group Human Rights Watch (HRW) told INQUIRER.net in an exclusive interview that the military, which should be “an exemplar of human rights promotion,” mistreated detainees and put civilians and hostage at greater risk.
HRW Philippines Researcher Carlos Conde said that he found out about the human rights violations through interviews with people that were taken hostage by the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and also some of the detained MNLF members.
Five detained MNLF members had said that plastic bags were placed over their head by police or military authorities to suffocate them and force them to admit they were part of the rebel group.
Some detainees were beaten and there was also a case where the detainee had alcohol poured into his nose while in another, the detainee was blindfolded and his head dunked into a toilet bowl, HRW said.
Minors arrested by authorities were handcuffed to each other and locked up for more than a week with adults, “which is a violation of local laws on children” Conde said. They were also kept in detention for that long without any charges being filed against them, which is illegal.
The military, during its operations, had also continued firing at the members of the rebel group even when they were using hostages as human shields, according to the hostages that HRW interviewed.
“In the case of this conflict, what the MNLF did was they used hostages as human shield,” which Conde said was a very serious violation of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and the worst violation of the conflict.
“Their lives were at risk, but the military during the operations, according to the hostages, kept firing at them even though they know they were hostages and may have wounded or killed some of the hostages,” Conde said.
The actions of the military had placed the risk of the civilian at a higher level, which was also a violation of IHL, he said.
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