UN has offered to help ensure anti-terrorism law complies with human rights —Guevarra

The United Nations has offered to help the Philippines ensure that the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of the anti-terrorism law do not violate human rights, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said Monday.

At the Philippine Human Rights Summit, Guevarra thanked the UN "for their offer of technical assistance in the undertaking to ensure that the anti-terrorism rules conform to the fundamental tenets of human rights laws."

He later clarified that the offer does not mean the UN saw something that needed to be corrected in the IRR.

"The UN simply wants us to have a glimpse of best practice worldwide and tweak our own, if desired," he said in a message to reporters.

Several groups have raised concerns that the government could use the law to go after its critics in the guise of an anti-terrorism campaign.

Many activists have been "red-tagged," or labelled as members of fronts of the Communist Party of the Philippines, which the state wants a court to declare a terrorist organization.

While the law exempts protest, advocacy, and other exercises of civil and political rights from the definition of terrorism, its critics say the exemption applies only to acts that are not "intended to cause death or serious physical harm to a person, to endanger a person's life, or to create a serious risk to public safety."

They said the interpretation of "intent" may be abused by state authorities.

But Guevarra said in his speech that the IRR clarifies that the prosecution has the burden to prove such intent to endanger life or public safety.

"This prevents abuse of the law to trifle with our people's exercise of their most fundamental rights," he said.

The justice secretary also said that the provision in the IRR for the publication of people "designated" as terrorists is a means to "give those adversely affected the opportunity to contest the designation and to avail themselves of delisting as a remedy."

Meanwhile, the human rights group Karapatan pointed out the "irony" of the government holding a human rights summit against a backdrop of continuing "extrajudicial killings" and other rights violations.

Karapatan said the Duterte administration has "intensified" its red-tagging of activists, advocates, and progressive organizations and continued to "illegally" arrest those it brands as "terrorists."

"As this summit is being held, Duterte’s terror law hangs like a Damocles sword on the exercise of free speech, press freedom, the freedom of association, and the right to political dissent, as we descend to lowest of lows in the government’s human rights record," the group said.

"We hope that this irony won’t be lost on those participating in the event, including the international community. The realities on the ground, including the inadequacy of domestic mechanisms of accountability, are plain to see," it added. — BM, GMA News