CANDLE-LIGHTING. Youth human rights advocates light candles to celebrate the International Declaration of Human Rights at Kiosko Kagawasan in Divisoria on Tuesday night. The International Human Rights Day activity here was spearheaded by Amnesty International. (photo by Joey Nacalaban)
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By JIGGER J. JERUSALEM
Correspondent

WITH the impending lifting of martial law in Mindanao, a human rights watchdog has called on the international community to investigate the reports of abuses being perpetrated by state agents during the almost three years of military rule in the island.

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The group noted that when Mindanao was put under martial law, it has enabled the Duterte administration to entrench 75 percent of the military’s combat forces in lumad (indigenous people), Moro, and peasant communities.

“These communities are the guardians of the remaining ‘last frontiers’ of natural resources like mineral deposits, hydropower, and agricultural lands that Duterte has pledged to foreign investors,” Yañez said.

Since it was implemented in 2017 at the height of the siege in Marawi City, he said martial law in Mindanao has resulted in more than 162 extrajudicial killings of individuals, 704 cases of fabricated charges, 284 case of illegal arrests and detention, 1,007 victims of aerial bombardments, and forced evacuations of more than half a million people.

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