MANILA: Filipino lawyers on Thursday announced a broad alliance to challenge President Rodrigo Duterte’s 16-month war on drugs amid unprecedented scrutiny of the campaign in which more than 3,900 mostly urban, poor Filipinos have been killed.
Police say the deaths were in self-defense after armed suspects resisted arrest. Critics dispute that and say executions are taking place, with zero accountability.
Lawyers Against Extrajudicial Killings adds to a growing number of voices calling on the government to end the campaign.
“It is the duty of all lawyers to consistently, uncompromisingly uphold and defend human rights,” said Edre Olalia, head of the National Union of People’s Lawyers and one of the group’s organizers.
Duterte’s spokesman, Harry Roque, a congressman and human rights lawyer, denied rights violations on the part of the president but welcomed the new group.
“Unless we can come up with actual evidence that there are extra-legal killings, then we cannot overcome the presumption (of regularity in the discharge of official functions),” Roque said.
“He (Duterte) will not tolerate murders. He will only tolerate killings when it is in line with duty and when the engagement is legal,” Roque, who had prosecuted on behalf of murdered journalists, told reporters.
Filipino lawyers’ group challenges Duterte’s war on drugs
Filipino lawyers’ group challenges Duterte’s war on drugs
Trump administration labels 3 Muslim Brotherhood branches as terrorist organizations
- The State Department designated the Lebanese branch a foreign terrorist organization
- “These designations reflect the opening actions of an ongoing, sustained effort to thwart Muslim Brotherhood chapters’ violence,” Rubio said
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s administration has made good on its pledge to label three Middle Eastern branches of the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist organizations, imposing sanctions on them and their members in a decision that could have implications for US relationships with allies Qatar and Turkiye.
The Treasury and State departments announced the actions Tuesday against the Lebanese, Jordanian and Egyptian chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood, which they said pose a risk to the United States and American interests.
The State Department designated the Lebanese branch a foreign terrorist organization, the most severe of the labels, which makes it a criminal offense to provide material support to the group. The Jordanian and Egyptian branches were listed by Treasury as specially designated global terrorists for providing support to Hamas.
“These designations reflect the opening actions of an ongoing, sustained effort to thwart Muslim Brotherhood chapters’ violence and destabilization wherever it occurs,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement. “The United States will use all available tools to deprive these Muslim Brotherhood chapters of the resources to engage in or support terrorism.”
Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent were mandated last year under an executive order signed by Trump to determine the most appropriate way to impose sanctions on the groups, which US officials say engage in or support violence and destabilization campaigns that harm the United States and other regions.
Muslim Brotherhood leaders have said they renounce violence.
Trump’s executive order had singled out the chapters in Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt, noting that a wing of the Lebanese chapter had launched rockets on Israel after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack in Israel that set off the war in Gaza. Leaders of the group in Jordan have provided support to Hamas, the order said.
The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in 1928 but was banned in that country in 2013. Jordan announced a sweeping ban on the Muslim Brotherhood in April.
Nathan Brown, a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University, said some allies of the US, including the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, would likely be pleased with the designation.
“For other governments where the brotherhood is tolerated, it would be a thorn in bilateral relations,” including in Qatar and Turkiye, he said.
Brown also said a designation on the chapters may have effects on visa and asylum claims for people entering not just the US but also Western European countries and Canada.
“I think this would give immigration officials a stronger basis for suspicion, and it might make courts less likely to question any kind of official action against Brotherhood members who are seeking to stay in this country, seeking political asylum,” he said.
Trump, a Republican, weighed whether to designate the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization in 2019 during his first term in office. Some prominent Trump supporters, including right-wing influencer Laura Loomer, have pushed his administration to take aggressive action against the group.
Two Republican-led state governments — Florida and Texas — designated the group as a terrorist organization this year.
