Tag Archives: Protests

Turkey begins trial of hunger striking teachers amid protests

Riot police detain protesters during the trial of two Turkish teachers, who went on a hunger strike over their dismissal under a government decree following last year's failed coup, outside of a courthouse in Ankara, Turkey, September 14, 2017. REUTERS/Umit Bektas

By Ece Toksabay

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkish police used tear gas to disperse protesters outside a courthouse in Ankara on Thursday at the start of the trial of two teachers who have been on hunger strike since losing their jobs in a crackdown following last year’s failed coup.

Literature professor Nuriye Gulmen and primary school teacher Semih Ozakca have been surviving on liquids and supplements for six months, and doctors have described their condition as dangerously weak.

They were detained in May over alleged links to the militant leftist DHKP-C group, deemed a terrorist organization by Turkey.

Neither they nor their original lawyers were in court at the start of the hearing. The gendarmerie said the defendants might try to escape from the courtroom, despite their weakened state, and arrest warrants were issued this week for 18 of their lawyers.

Police attempted to break up the protests using tear gas, and riot police were present inside and outside the building. At least 20 protesters were detained, being dragged along the ground in the process.

“The first obstacle before a fair trial was the detention of their lawyers, which also served as a veiled intimidation attempt at the judges trying them. Now they are not brought to court, in an open breach of their right to defend,” said Baris Yarkadas, a lawmaker from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP).

At least a hundred lawyers were present at the courthouse to defend the teachers, along with CHP parliamentarians and the pro-Kurdish opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).

The teachers have said their hunger strike aimed to draw attention to the plight of roughly 150,000 people suspended or sacked since last July’s failed putsch, which President Tayyip Erdogan blames on followers of U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen. Gulen denies any involvement.

Last month, the European Court of Human Rights rejected a request by the two teachers to order Ankara to release them on health grounds.

Since the failed coup attempt, some 50,000 people including journalists, opposition figures, civil servants and others have been detained in the crackdown.

Rights groups and Turkey’s Western allies accuse the government of using the coup as a pretext to muzzle dissent.

Ankara says the purges are necessary due to the gravity of the threats it faces.

(Writing by Ece Toksabay and Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Opposition stays away as Kenyatta warns against ‘destructive division’

Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta walks to inspect the honour guard before the opening of the 12th Parliament outside the National Assembly Chamber in Nairobi, Kenya September 12, 2017. REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya

By Katharine Houreld

NAIROBI (Reuters) – Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta opened parliament on Tuesday by warning against divisive and destructive politics, while opposition lawmakers boycotted the legislature and rallied to demand the resignation of election officials.

Kenya held parliamentary, presidential and local elections on Aug. 8, but the Supreme Court nullified the presidential results three weeks later, citing irregularities in the tallying process. New elections are scheduled for Oct. 17.

While calling for unity and respect for the constitution, Kenyatta delivered a thinly veiled warning to the opposition lawmakers who had chosen to stay away from parliament.

“My government will not tolerate anyone intent on disrupting our hard-won peace and stability. Under no circumstances must Kenyans ever allow our free competitive processes to become a threat to the peace and security of our nation,” he said, to foot-stamping and cheering from ruling party legislators.

“We shall continue to encourage vibrant democratic competition, we shall not allow destructive division.”

As he spoke, opposition leaders held a rally in Kibera, the capital’s largest slum, rejecting the Oct. 17 date unless officials on the election board, whom they blame for mishandling the polls, resign.

“Now we are putting it squarely to you that the Supreme Court of this country has found you incompetent,” said Kalonzo Musyoka, running mate of Kenyatta’s presidential rival Raila Odinga.

The surprise election annulment initially raised fears of short-term political turmoil in Kenya, the region’s richest nation and a staunch Western ally in a region roiled by conflict.

But it also raised hopes among frustrated opposition supporters, who believe the last three elections have been stolen from them, that the east African nation’s tarnished courts could deliver them justice.

That hope helped tamp down protests that threatened to spark the kind of violence that followed disputed 2007 elections, when around 1,200 people were killed in ethnic bloodletting.

In a separate development, a ruling party lawmaker and a former opposition senator appeared in a Nairobi court, charged with incitement to violence over speeches they had made in the past week. Both were freed on a 300,000 Kenya shilling ($3,000) bond.

A government body monitoring hate speech says that it has seen a spike since the Supreme Court ruling. More than three times as many incidents were reported in the week following the ruling than during the whole 10-week election campaign, it said.

 

(Additional reporting by Duncan Miriri and Humphrey Malalo; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

 

Venezuela Supreme Court has staged effective coup: jurists’ group

FILE PHOTO: People walk in front of the building of Venezuela's Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) in Caracas, Venezuela June 28, 2017. REUTERS/Marco Bello/File Photo

GENEVA (Reuters) – Venezuela’s Supreme Court has progressively dismantled the rule of law, becoming an instrument of President Nicolas Maduro’s government in what amounts to a coup against the constitutional order, an international human rights group charged on Tuesday.

The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) said the top court had undermined human rights and infringed the Constitution through a series of rulings since December 2015.

In two rulings in March 2017, the Supreme Court of Justice “effectively claimed legislative powers for itself, depriving the National Assembly of its Constitutional powers and granting sweeping arbitrary powers to the executive,” it said.

“These decisions amount to a coup d’état against the Constitutional order and have ushered in a new reign of arbitrary rule,” Sam Zarifi, ICJ Secretary General, said in a statement.

Judges on the Supreme Court are mainly from the ruling Socialist Party and/or former officials of the government of Maduro, the Geneva-based jurists’ group said.

Maduro denies accusations of a power grab, saying his actions – including the creation of an alternative constituent assembly that has granted itself lawmaking powers – are aimed at restoring peace after months of protests and violence.

Zarifi said the Supreme Court of Justice “has issued its decisions based on political considerations and ideological and party loyalties to the executive power”.

The ICJ report, “The Supreme Court of Justice: an instrument of executive power”, was issued on the sidelines of the U.N. Human Rights Council which began a three-week session on Monday.

U.N. human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said on Monday that Venezuelan security forces may have committed crimes against humanity against protesters and called for an international investigation.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

Exclusive: Bangladesh protests over Myanmar’s suspected landmine use near border

FILE PHOTO: A Rohingya man carrying his belongings approaches the Bangladesh-Myanmar border in Bandarban, an area under Cox's Bazar authority, Bangladesh, August 29, 2017. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain/File Photo

By Krishna N. Das

DHAKA (Reuters) – Bangladesh lodged a protest after it said Myanmar had laid landmines near the border between the two countries, government officials said on Wednesday, amid growing tensions over the huge influx of Rohingya Muslims fleeing violence in Myanmar.

An army crackdown triggered by an attack on Aug. 25 by Rohingya insurgents on Myanmar security forces has led to the killing of at least 400 people and the exodus of nearly 125,000 Rohingya to Bangladesh, leading to a major humanitarian crisis.

When asked whether Bangladesh had lodged the complaint, Foreign Secretary Shahidul Haque said “yes” without elaborating. Three other government sources confirmed that a protest note was faxed to Myanmar in the morning saying the Buddhist-majority country was violating international norms.

“Bangladesh has expressed great concern to Myanmar about the explosions very close to the border,” a source with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters. The source asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.

A Myanmar military source said landmines were laid along the border in the 1990s to prevent trespassing and the military had since tried to remove them. But none had been planted recently.

Two Bangladeshi sources told Reuters they believed Myanmar security forces were putting the landmines in their territory along the barbed-wire fence between a series of border pillars. Both sources said Bangladesh learned about the landmines mainly through photographic evidence and informers.

“Our forces have also seen three to four groups working near the barbed wire fence, putting something into the ground,” one of the sources said. “We then confirmed with our informers that they were laying land mines.”

The sources did not clarify if the groups were in uniform, but added that they were sure they were not Rohingya insurgents.

Manzurul Hassan Khan, a Bangladesh border guard officer, told Reuters earlier that two blasts were heard on Tuesday on the Myanmar side, after two on Monday fueled speculation that Myanmar forces had laid land mines.

One boy had his left leg blown off on Tuesday near a border crossing before being brought to Bangladesh for treatment, while another boy suffered minor injuries, Khan said, adding that the blast could have been a mine explosion.

A Rohingya refugee who went to the site of the blast on Monday – on a footpath near where civilians fleeing violence are huddled in a no man’s land on the border – filmed what appeared to be a mine: a metal disc about 10 centimeters (4 inches) in diameter partially buried in the mud. He said he believed there were two more such devices buried in the ground.

Two refugees also told Reuters they saw members of the Myanmar army around the site in the immediate period preceding the Monday blasts, which occurred around 2:25 p.m.

Reuters was unable to independently verify that the planted devices were land mines and that there was any link to the Myanmar army.

The Myanmar army has not commented on the blasts near the border. Zaw Htay, the spokesman for Myanmar’s national leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, was not immediately available for comment.

On Monday, he told Reuters clarification was needed to determine “where did it explode, who can go there and who laid those land mines. Who can surely say those mines were not laid by the terrorists?”

The Bangladesh interior ministry secretary, Mostafa Kamal Uddin, did not respond to calls seeking comment.

The border pillars mentioned by the Dhaka-based sources mark the boundaries of the two countries, along which Myanmar has a portion of barbed wire fencing. Most of the two countries’ 217-km-long border is porous.

“They are not doing anything on Bangladeshi soil,” said one of the sources. “But we have not seen such laying of land mines in the border before.”

Myanmar, which was under military rule until recently and is one of the most heavily mined countries in the world, is one of the few countries that have not signed the 1997 U.N. Mine Ban Treaty.

(Additional reporting by Wa Lone in YANGON and Ruma Paul in DHAKA; Editing by Philip McClellan and Nick Macfie)

Venezuelan opposition pins hopes on elections as protests falter

FILE PHOTO: Opposition supporters clash with riot security forces while rallying against President Nicolas Maduro in Caracas, Venezuela, May 10, 2017. REUTERS/Marco Bello/FIle Photo

By Brian Ellsworth

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s opposition is shifting its focus to forthcoming state elections as protests aimed at ousting President Nicolas Maduro have subsided following the installation of an all-powerful, pro-government legislative body.

Four months of violent demonstrations in which at least 125 people were killed have all but stopped due to fatigue among protesters and disillusionment at seeing the ruling Socialist Party cement vast powers despite the concerted opposition push.

Most opposition leaders say October’s elections for governors in all the country’s 23 states now represent the best means to keep pressuring Maduro, providing a chance to win some of the governorships at stake and an opportunity for a protest vote to demonstrate the president’s unpopularity.

The opposition, which boycotted the elections for the Constituent Assembly, accused electoral authorities of inflating turn-out figures for the July 30 vote.

There are few options available for adversaries of Maduro, who maintains control over the OPEC nation despite widespread public anger about triple-digit inflation and chronic shortages of basic goods.

“Venezuelans are fighting against a continued rupture of the constitutional order,” said opposition leader Henrique Capriles, who is governor of Miranda state but who is not running in next month’s election and who is barred from holding public office once his term expires.

Nevertheless he urged Venezuelans to vote in the elections.

“If you abstain, then it’s more difficult to bring about the political change that all Venezuelans want,” Capriles told reporters. Capriles has called his own barring from office – because of alleged irregularities in managing public funds – a Socialist Party move to sideline him.

Governorships provide little in the way of a platform to directly challenge Maduro. But they are coveted by politicians because they offer launching pads for political careers and the possibility to channel state resources toward political allies.

The opposition’s participation in next month’s poll ensures it will have witnesses at voting stations and at the election council headquarters. Opposition coalition leaders say that should allow them to quickly identify any attempt to alter results.

However, some who spent months on the streets with the encouragement of opposition leaders, especially young members of a self-styled “Resistance” movement, feel betrayed.

They say turning attention so quickly to the election legitimizes what they view as Maduro’s authoritarianism and insults the memory of slain protesters. They also see a contradiction with the opposition’s decision to boycott July’s vote for the Constituent Assembly.

Maduro pushed for the creation of the assembly, which is meant to rewrite the constitution but which has no formal check on its powers, saying it would restore stability to a country in turmoil over the widespread anti-government protests.

It has broadly supplanted the Congress, which the opposition won control of in a 2015 landslide vote.

Small opposition party Vente Venezuela and its founder Maria Corina Machado, who has a high profile in the media but limited influence, broke with the opposition’s Democratic Unity coalition over its decision to join next month’s vote.

CANDIDATES TO BE BARRED?

The main opposition parties have nominated candidates and opinion polls show that in a free and fair vote they would likely take a majority, compared to just three governorships they won in 2012.

But the Socialist Party-controlled Constituent Assembly may bar some of them from running or from holding office if they win.

Last week, the assembly said it would seek the prosecution of opposition leaders for treason for attempting to block international financing for Maduro’s government and for allegedly seeking a military intervention against him.

Government leaders say the end of the protests is evidence the Constituent Assembly has brought peace to the country. They add that the opposition’s decision to register candidates is a sign they believe in the electoral system despite their complaints of fraud.

“The Constituent Assembly has calmed the country,” said assembly president Delcy Rodriguez. “As soon as it was inaugurated, Venezuela returned to tranquility.”

Maduro says the country is a victim of an “economic war” by the opposition, and insists the assembly is a symbol of Venezuela’s vibrant democracy.

The opposition took to the streets in late March to protest a Supreme Court ruling that briefly allowed it to assume the powers of Congress, and maintained near daily rallies until the end of July.

By then, street mobilizations were in decline and what had initially been massive marches steadily gave way to violent clashes between security forces and small groups of hooded demonstrators throwing rocks and at times vandalizing property.

Recent opposition rallies have attracted only a few hundred people.

U.S. President Donald Trump has imposed sanctions on top ruling Socialist Party officials, in some cases for their participation in the Constituent Assembly, while the European Union and most Latin American nations condemned the body.

Maduro has acquired the reputation as a dictator around the world, said opposition leader Freddy Guevara in an interview in August broadcast on the Internet, adding that street protests were crucial in shifting public opinion.

“I’m convinced that we have to confront the dictatorship in any situation that we can,” said Guevara.

(Reporting by Brian Ellsworth; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Frances Kerry)

Kenya’s Odinga rejects vote re-run date without ‘guarantees’, Kenyatta rebuffs demand

Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga, of the National Super Alliance (NASA) coalition, speaks during a church service inside the St. Stephen's cathedral in Nairobi, Kenya September 3, 2017. REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya

By John Ndiso

NAIROBI (Reuters) – Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga said on Tuesday his coalition would not participate in the re-run of a presidential election proposed for Oct. 17 unless it is given “legal and constitutional” guarantees.

Incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta responded by saying there was nowhere in law that required the electoral body to consult Odinga.

The opposition also said it is planning to file dozens of challenges to results from races lower down the ticket, including legislative and local seats.

Odinga’s conditions for participating in the repeat presidential election include the removal of six officials at the election board. He wants criminal investigations to be opened against them.

“You cannot do a mistake twice and expect to get different results,” Odinga told reporters. “A number of the officials of the commission should be sent home, some of them should be investigated for the heinous crimes they committed.”

Kenya’s Supreme Court ordered on Friday that the Aug. 8 vote be re-run within 60 days, saying Kenyatta’s victory by 1.4 million votes was undermined by irregularities in the process. Kenyatta was not accused of any wrongdoing.

The ruling, the first time in Africa that a court had overturned the re-election of a sitting president, was hailed by Odinga supporters as “historic”.

Analysts have said it is likely to lead to some short-term volatility in East Africa’s biggest economy, but could build confidence in institutions longer-term.

On Monday, the election board said it would hold new elections on Oct. 17.

But Odinga said he wanted elections held on Oct. 24 or 31 instead.

“There will be no elections on the seventeenth of October until the conditions that we have spelt out in the statement are met,” he said.

Kenyatta rebuffed Odinga’s demands to the commission on the setting of the election date.

“There is no legal requirement that Raila be consulted. I was neither consulted. Kenya doesn’t belong to one man,” he said in a statement sent by his office.

Odinga has lost the last three presidential elections. Each time, he has said the vote was rigged against him.

The opposition also plans to lodge 62 court cases contesting governorship, lawmaker, and local seats, spokeswoman Kathleen Openda told Reuters.

At least 33 court cases were filed contesting election results before the presidential election was annulled, said Andrew Limo, spokesman for the election board. Others had been filed since but he did not have the updated figure.

Limo said the numbers had not yet reached the same level as during the 2013 elections, when the board received challenges to 189 results.

(Writing by David Lewis and Katharine Houreld; Editing by George Obulutsa)

China seeks to silence critics at U.N. forums: rights body report

FILE PHOTO: Pro-democracy demonstrators hold up portraits of Chinese disbarred lawyer Jiang Tianyong, demanding his release, during a demonstration outside the Chinese liaison office in Hong Kong, China December 23, 2016. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – Beijing is waging a campaign of harassment against Chinese activists who seek to testify at the United Nations about repression, while the world body sometimes turns a blind eye or is even complicit, Human Rights Watch said.

In a report released on Tuesday, the group said China restricts travel of activists, or photographs or films them if they do come to the U.N. in Geneva to cooperate with human rights watchdogs scrutinizing its record.

“What we found is that China is systematically trying to undermine the U.N.’s ability to defend human rights, certainly in China but also globally,” Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, told Reuters.

“This comes at a point where domestically China’s repression is the worst it has been since the Tiananmen Square democracy movement (in 1989). So there is much to hide and China clearly attaches enormous importance to muting criticism of its increasingly abysmal human rights record.”

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang dismissed the report’s accusations as “groundless”, saying Beijing was playing an active role in the United Nations’ human rights work.

“We urge the relevant organization to remove their tinted lenses and objectively and justly view China’s human rights development,” he told a regular briefing.

Rolando Gomez, U.N. Human Rights Council spokesman, said the office did its best to protect all participants and had been “extremely vigilant in addressing and investigating all acts and perceived acts of intimidation, threats, and attacks brought to its attention”, regardless of which state committed them.

The U.N. system offers one of the few remaining channels for Chinese activists to express their views, the New York-based rights group said.

Its report, “The Costs of International Advocacy: China’s Interference in United Nations Human Rights Mechanisms,” is based on 55 interviews.

“NIP-IT-IN-THE-BUD STRATEGY”

“(Chinese President) Xi Jinping seems to have adopted a ‘nip it in the bud’ strategy with respect to activism at home, but increasingly abroad. That’s one of our messages, China’s repression isn’t stopping at its borders these days,” Roth said.

In China, activists have “decreasing space safe” from intimidation, arbitrary detention, and a legal system controlled by the Communist Party, the report said, decrying a crackdown on activists and lawyers since 2015.Some activists who have attended U.N. reviews of China’s record have been punished on their return, it said. Others have their passports confiscated or are arrested before departure.

When Xi addressed the U.N. in Geneva in January, the U.N. barred non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from attending, Human Rights Watch said.

Dolkun Isa, an ethnic Uighur rights activist originally from China, was attending a U.N. event in New York in April when U.N. security guards ejected him without explanation, despite his accreditation, it added.

Jiang Tianyong, a prominent human rights lawyer, disappeared last November, months after meeting in Beijing with U.N. special rapporteur on poverty Philip Alston who has called for his release.

Jiang, after being held incommunicado for six months, was charged with subversion. At his trial last month he confessed, saying that he had been inspired to overthrow China’s political system by workshops he had attended overseas.

“So the signal is clear – don’t you dare present an independent perspective to a U.N. investigator,” Roth said.

(Reporting and writing by Stephanie Nebehay; Additional reporting by Christian Shepherd in Beijing; Editing by John Stonestreet)

Labor activists target Midwest politicians opposing wage increases

FILE PHOTO: Protest signs are pictured in SeaTac, Washington just before a march from SeaTac to Seattle aimed at the fast food industry and raising the federal minimum wage and Seattle's minimum wage to $15 an hour December 5, 2013. REUTERS/David Ryder/File Photo

By Chris Kenning

CHICAGO (Reuters) – U.S. activists plan protests in up to 400 cities across the United States on Monday’s Labor Day holiday to demand a minimum wage of $15 an hour, and are targeting politicians in Midwestern battleground states who have blocked such salary increases.

The demonstrations, backed by the Service Employees International Union, will focus on hospital and home care workers, joining the fast-food and janitorial staffers who have protested since the “Fight for $15” movement started in 2012.

The movement has helped to spur politicians in a growing number of cities such as New York, Seattle, Minneapolis and Washington, D.C., to adopt measures that over time raise minimum wages to $15 an hour.

Organizers are also increasing pressure on legislatures and governors, particularly in the Midwest, that have blocked or rolled back increases.

The increased focus on politicians who oppose wage increases may capture some of the populist job-related voter discontent in traditionally Democratic Midwest states that helped U.S. President Donald Trump win the White House, said Dick Simpson, a political science professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

“The minimum wage issue is one (issue) they can immediately identify with because it affects their pocketbook with every paycheck,” he said.

Republican Governor Scott Walker of the presidential swing state of Wisconsin is among those targeted, as is Illinois Republican Governor Bruce Rauner, who last month vetoed raising the minimum wage to $15 by 2022, saying it would hurt employment and businesses.

“I’m doing 40 hours of campaigning and knocking on doors and making phone calls, whatever it takes to get Walker out of office,” Milwaukee hospital worker Margie Breelove said.

A voter-engagement drive, also slated to begin on Monday, seeks thousands of workers to pledge to volunteer 40 hours leading up to the 2018 elections.

The idea is to support candidates, most of them Democrats, for state legislatures or governor who favor wage hikes and union rights in such states as Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin and Illinois, along with other areas outside the Midwest.

“It’s not just about taking out people that have been rigging the rules against us, it’s backing candidates who are prepared to support our agenda,” SEIU President Mary Kay Henry said in a telephone interview.

Representatives for the governors of Wisconsin, Missouri and Illinois did not respond to requests for comment on Friday.

Opponents of raising the current federal minimum hourly wage of $7.25 argue that it hurts businesses. The federal minimum wage was last increased in 2009.

But supporters of an increase say the current level is not enough to live on and helps fuel the need for social safety-net programs. They point to studies showing little impact on jobs.

Under a law approved last year, California set a $15 target for all workers, which it plans to reach in 2023. New York state is also gradually increasing its minimum wage to $15 an hour for all workers. Cities, including Minneapolis, have also approved such legislation.

However, since 2016, eight states, including Alabama, Kentucky and Iowa, have passed laws pre-empting local wage laws, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

St. Louis’ minimum wage, which had increased to $10 an hour, recently reverted to $7.70 after the legislature prohibited cities from creating separate wage laws. Missouri Governor Eric Greitens had opposed the increase.

(Reporting by Chris Kenning; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

U.N. cites systematic use of excessive force in Venezuela crackdown on dissent

Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights attends a news conference on Venezuela at the United Nations Office in Geneva, Switzerland August 30, 2017. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations on Wednesday said Venezuela’s security forces had committed extensive and apparently deliberate human rights violations in crushing anti-government protests.

The actions indicated “a policy to repress political dissent and instil fear”, the U.N. human rights office said in a report that called for further investigation.

It called on the government of President Nicolas Maduro to release arbitrarily detained demonstrators and to halt the unlawful use of military courts to try civilians.

More than 1,000 people were believed to remain in custody as of July 31, among more than 5,000 detained in street protests since April, it said. Detainees are often subjected to ill-treatment, in some documented cases amounting to torture.

“Credible and consistent accounts of victims and witnesses indicate that security forces systematically used excessive force to deter demonstrations, crush dissent and instill fear,” it said in a report following initial findings issued on Aug 8.

Security forces have used tear gas canisters, motorcycles, water cannons and live ammunition to disperse the protesters, it said.

Venezuelan security forces and pro-government groups are believed to be responsible for the deaths of 73 people since April, while responsibility for the remaining 51 deaths has not been determined, the U.N. report said.

The overall toll of 124 includes nine members of the security forces that the government says were killed through July and four people allegedly killed by protesters, it said.

Some protesters have resorted to violent means, ranging from rocks to sling shots, Molotov cocktails and homemade mortars in protests against Maduro and shortages of food and other basic goods, it said.

Maduro has said Venezuela was the victim of an “armed insurrection” by U.S.-backed opponents seeking to gain control of the OPEC country’s oil wealth.

But as the political crisis deepened, the use of force by security forces has progressively escalated, the report said.

“The generalized and systematic use of excessive force during demonstrations and the arbitrary detention of protesters and perceived political opponents indicate that these were not the illegal or rogue acts of isolated officials,” it said.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein warned in a statement that amid the economic and social crises and rising political tensions, there was a “grave risk the situation in Venezuela will deteriorate further”.

The government must ensure that investigations begun by the state prosecutor Luisa Ortega — who was removed from her post this month after accusing Maduro of eroding democracy – continue and are scrupulously impartial, Zeid said.

Venezuela held nationwide armed forces exercises on Saturday, calling on civilians to join reserve units to defend against a possible attack after U.S. President Donald Trump warned that a “military option” was on the table for the crisis-hit country.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)

Philippines’ Duterte says police can kill ‘idiots’ who resist arrest

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte greets Lorenza de los Santos and husband Saldy, parents of 17-year-old high school student Kian Delos Santos, who was killed recently in police raid in line with the war on drug, during their visit at Malacanang presidential complex in metro Manila, Philippines August 28, 2017

MANILA (Reuters) – Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte told police on Monday they could kill “idiots” who violently resist arrest, two days after hundreds of people turned the funeral of a slain teenager into a protest against his deadly war on drugs.

Duterte met the parents of the schoolboy, 17-year-old Kian Loyd delos Santos, at the presidential palace in Manila on Monday, to assure them their son’s case would be handled fairly.

Delos Santos’ mother, Lorenza, said she was confident the president would help quickly resolve the case, while the father, Saldy, said he no longer feared for their lives and felt reassured by the meeting.

“He promised he would not allow those who have committed wrong to go unpunished,” the mother said in an interview posted online by Duterte’s communications office on a Facebook page after the meeting.

Duterte unleashed the anti-drugs war after taking office in June last year following an election campaign in which he vowed to use deadly force to wipe out crime and drugs.

Thousands of people have been killed and the violence has been criticized by much of the international community.

Domestic opposition has been largely muted but the killing of delos Santos by anti-drugs officers on Aug. 16 has sparked rare public outrage.

Residents stay at a wake of a victim of a shooting by masked motorcycle-riding men during a local community protest march against extrajudicial killings in Sampaloc, metro Manila, Philippines August 28, 2017. REUTERS/Dondi

Residents stay at a wake of a victim of a shooting by masked motorcycle-riding men during a local community protest march against extrajudicial killings in Sampaloc, metro Manila, Philippines August 28, 2017. REUTERS/Dondi Tawatao

More than 1,000 people, including nuns, priests and hundreds of children, joined his funeral procession on Saturday, turning the march into one of the biggest protests yet against Duterte’s anti-drugs campaign.

Earlier, Duterte broke off midway through a prepared speech at the Hero’s Cemetery on the outskirts of Manila and addressed impromptu comments to Jovie Espenido, the police chief of a town in the south where the mayor was killed in an anti-drugs raid.

“Your duty requires you to overcome the resistance of the person you are arresting … (if) he resists, and it is a violent one … you are free to kill the idiots, that is my order to you,” Duterte told the police officer.

Duterte added that “murder and homicide and unlawful killings” were not allowed and that police had to uphold the rule of law while carrying out their duties.

Delos Santos was dragged by plain-clothes policemen to a dark, trash-filled alley in Manila before he was shot in the head and left next to a pigsty, according to witnesses whose accounts appeared to be backed up by CCTV footage.

Police say they acted in self defense after delos Santos opened fire on them, and Duterte’s spokesman and the justice minister have described the killing of the teenager as an “isolated” case.

U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, Agnes Callamard, described the killing of delos Santos as “murder” in a tweet on Aug. 25, earning the ire of Duterte who in a separate speech on Monday called her “son of a bitch” and “stupid”.

“She should not threaten me,” Duterte said as he challenged Callamard to visit and see the situation in the Philippines.

A planned visit by Callamard in December was canceled because she refused to accept Duterte’s conditions that she must hold a debate with him. She turned up in unofficial capacity in May to address an academic conference on human rights.

 

 

(Reporting by Karen Lema; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan, Robert Birsel)