MANILA: A ban on carrying firearms went into force in the Philippines Sunday before local elections, amid growing debate about the need for stricter controls following a series of shooting deaths.
The ban will end on June 13 and is meant to curb violence linked to mid-term elections in May, when the country elects thousands of local officials ranging from governors to senators.
“We have set up random checkpoints across the country,” to enforce the ban, Commission on Elections spokesman James Jimenez said on radio station DZMM.
Jimenez said the campaign would likely lead to arrests soon, though none had happened in the first hours of the ban.
The ban covers the carrying of firearms, the hiring of armed bodyguards by candidates and the transporting of arms, explosives, raw materials or parts, the elections body said.
Exempted from the ban were members of the police, armed forces and President Benigno Aquino — himself a gun enthusiast.
Aquino had earlier rejected calls to declare a permanent, total gun ban as a knee-jerk reaction following high-profile gun-related deaths since the start of the year.
Two children died from bullet wounds caused by celebratory gunfire from New Year revellers.
Just a few days later a drug-crazed gunman shot dead seven people during a 30-minute rampage on the outskirts of Manila, before police killed him.
And on Sunday last week security forces shot 13 alleged criminals dead.
Rights monitors have said the proliferation of unlicensed guns fuels a sense of impunity across the Philippines, where some politicians employ private militias to threaten rivals and voters.
According to police data, there were 1.2 million registered firearms in the Philippines as of last year, with roughly another 600,000 unlicensed firearms in circulation.
While carrying an unlicensed firearm is punishable by up to six years in prison, it is relatively easy to acquire guns on the black market.
Election gun ban takes effect in Philippines
Election gun ban takes effect in Philippines
French publisher recalls dictionary over ‘Jewish settler’ reference
- The entry in French reads: “In October 2023, following the death of more than 1,200 Jewish settlers in a series of Hamas attacks”
- The four books are subject to a recall procedure and will be destroyed, Hachette said
PARSI: French publisher Hachette on Friday said it had recalled a dictionary that described the Israeli victims of the October 7, 2023 attacks as “Jewish settlers” and promised to review all its textbooks and educational materials.
The Larousse dictionary for 11- to 15-year-old students contained the same phrase as that discovered by an anti-racism body in three revision books, the company told AFP.
The entry in French reads: “In October 2023, following the death of more than 1,200 Jewish settlers in a series of Hamas attacks, Israel decided to tighten its economic blockade and invade a large part of the Gaza Strip, triggering a major humanitarian crisis in the region.”
The worst attack in Israeli history saw militants from the Palestinian Islamist group kill around 1,200 people in settlements close to the Gaza Strip and at a music festival.
“Jewish settlers” is a term used to describe Israelis living on illegally occupied Palestinian land.
The four books, which were immediately withdrawn from sale, are subject to a recall procedure and will be destroyed, Hachette said, promising a “thorough review of its textbooks, educational materials and dictionaries.”
France’s leading publishing group, which came under the control of the ultra-conservative Vincent Bollore at the end of 2023, has begun an internal inquiry “to determine how such an error was made.”
It promised to put in place “a new, strengthened verification process for all its future publications” in these series.
President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday said that it was “intolerable” that the revision books for the French school leavers’ exam, the baccalaureat, “falsify the facts” about the “terrorist and antisemitic attacks by Hamas.”
“Revisionism has no place in the Republic,” he wrote on X.
Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, with 251 people taken hostage, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Authorities in Gaza estimate that more than 70,000 people have been killed by Israeli forces during their bombardment of the territory since, while nearly 80 percent of buildings have been destroyed or damaged, according to UN data.
Israeli forces have killed at least 447 Palestinians in Gaza since a ceasefire took effect in October, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
