MANILA: The Philippine foreign minister hit back on Saturday at the United Nations’ human rights chief for issuing “irresponsible and disrespectful” comments about President Rodrigo Duterte, warning such remarks could set a dangerous precedent.
Duterte’s attacks against UN human rights activists suggest he needs to see a psychiatrist, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein told a news conference on Friday.
Zeid’s comments came after the Philippine justice ministry filed a petition in a Manila court seeking the declaration of more than 600 alleged communist guerrillas, including a UN special rapporteur, as “terrorists,” a development first reported by Reuters.
The petition included Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, appointed in 2014 as UN special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, who was listed as a senior member of the country’s Maoist rebel group.
Tauli-Corpuz called the complaint “baseless, malicious and irresponsible.”
Zeid said Duterte’s attacks against UN special rapporteurs cannot go unanswered and the UN Human Rights Council must take a position. He said the Philippine leader “needs to submit himself to some sort of psychiatric examination.”
Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano said: “The Philippines takes grave exception to the irresponsible and disrespectful comments of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights that cast untoward aspersions regarding the President of the Republic of the Philippines.”
Duterte has also repeatedly insulted the current UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, Agnes Callamard, because of her criticism of his bloody anti-narcotics campaign.
The Philippines welcomed a UN investigation into Duterte’s signature war on drugs but objected to Callamard leading it, saying she was biased and not qualified.
Cayetano said in a strongly worded statement the Philippines was bothered by “the manner in which a ranking UN human rights official can overstep his mandate and insult leaders of member-states without first giving them due process.”
“This could set a dangerous precedent that the council would have to immediately address as otherwise member-states could also fall victim to those who seek to politicize and weaponize human rights to undermine legitimate governments,” he said.
Duterte’s spokesman, Harry Roque, said Zeid’s language was an affront to Philippine sovereignty.
“I would hope that although you do not have the same democratic system in your home country of Jordan, you will respect the kind of democracy that we have in the Philippines,” he said in a message to Zeid.
Philippines slams UN rights chief for ‘disrespectful’ remarks about Duterte
Philippines slams UN rights chief for ‘disrespectful’ remarks about Duterte
Ex-CNN journalist Don Lemon pleads not guilty to Minnesota protest charges
- A magistrate judge ordered Lemon released to await trial, after a night in custody following his arrest late on Thursday by the FBI
LOS ANGELES: Former CNN news anchor Don Lemon entered a not guilty plea on Friday to federal charges over his role covering a protest at a Minnesota church against President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, the Republican administration’s latest move against a critic.
Lemon, now an independent journalist, livestreamed a protest against Trump’s deployment of thousands of armed immigration agents into Democratic-governed Minnesota’s biggest cities. The protest disrupted a January 18 service at Cities Church in St. Paul.
A magistrate judge ordered Lemon released to await trial, after a night in custody following his arrest late on Thursday by the FBI.
Dressed in a cream-colored double-breasted suit, Lemon spoke only to say “yes, your honor” when asked if he understood the proceedings. One of his attorneys said that he pleaded not guilty.
“He is committed to fighting this. He’s not going anywhere,” said Lemon attorney Marilyn Bednarski.
“I have spent my entire career covering the news. I will not stop now,” Lemon told reporters after the hearing. “I will not be silenced. I look forward to my day in court.”
A grand jury indictment charged Lemon, who is Black, with conspiring to deprive others of their civil rights and violating a law that has been used to crack down on demonstrations at abortion clinics but also forbids obstructing access to houses of worship. Six other people who were at the protest, including another journalist, are facing the same charges.
Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Minneapolis and other US cities on Friday to denounce an immigration crackdown in which federal agents fatally shot two US citizens, sparking one of the most serious political crises Trump has faced.
PRESS ADVOCATES ALARMED
Free press advocates voiced alarm over the arrests. Actor and activist Jane Fonda went to show support for Lemon, telling journalists the president was violating the Constitution. “They arrested the wrong Don,” Fonda said.
Trump, who has castigated the protesters in Minnesota, blamed the Cities Church protest on “agitators and insurrectionists” who he said wanted to intimidate Christian worshippers.
Organizers told Lemon they focused on the church because they believed a pastor there was also a senior US Immigration and Customs Enforcement employee.
More than a week ago, the government arrested three people it said organized the protests. But the magistrate judge in St. Paul who approved those arrests ruled that, without a grand jury indictment, there was not probable cause to issue arrest warrants for Lemon and several others the Justice Department also wanted to prosecute.
“This unprecedented attack on the First Amendment and transparent attempt to distract attention from the many crises facing this administration will not stand,” Abbe Lowell, Lemon’s lawyer, said in a statement, invoking constitutional free speech protections.
In the livestream archived on his YouTube channel, Lemon can be seen meeting with and interviewing the activists before they go to the church, and later chronicling the disruption inside, interviewing congregants, protesters and a pastor, who asks Lemon and the protesters to leave.
Independent local journalist Georgia Fort and two others who had been at the church were also arrested and charged with the same crimes.
US Magistrate Judge Dulce Foster on Friday ordered Fort’s release, denying prosecutors’ request to hold her in custody, according to court documents.
TRUMP CRITICS TARGETED
The Justice Department over the past year has tried to prosecute a succession of Trump’s critics and perceived enemies. Its charges against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, who both led investigations into Trump, were thrown out by a judge.
Lemon spent 17 years at CNN, becoming one of its most recognizable personalities, and frequently criticizes Trump in his YouTube broadcasts. Lemon was fired by CNN in 2023 after making sexist on-air comments for which he later apologized.
Trump frequently lambastes journalists and news outlets, going further than his predecessors by sometimes suing them for damages or stripping them of access-granting credentials.
FBI agents with a search warrant seized laptops and other devices this month from the home of a Washington Post reporter who has covered Trump’s firing of federal workers, saying it was investigating leaks of government secrets.
Press advocates called the FBI search involving the Post reporter and the arrests of Lemon and Fort an escalation of attacks on press freedom.
“Reporting on protests isn’t a crime,” said Jameel Jaffer, executive director of Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute. Jaffer called the arrests alarming, and said Trump sought “to tighten the vise around press freedom.”
Trump has said his attacks are because he is tired of “fake news” and hostile coverage.
Legal experts said they were unaware of any US precedent for journalists being arrested after the fact, or under the two laws used to charge Lemon and Fort. They include the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, a 1994 measure that prevents obstructing access to abortion clinics and places of worship.
