Human Rights Watch Philippines

“Myanmar’s military junta still invokes fear, even in the wake of a horrific natural disaster that killed and injured thousands,” said Bryony Lau, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The junta needs to break from its appalling past practice and ensure that humanitarian aid quickly reaches those whose lives are at risk in earthquake-affected areas.”

Myanmar: Allow Immediate Aid to Quake-Stricken Areas Myanmar’s military junta should allow immediate unfettered access to humanitarian aid for earthquake survivors and lift restrictions that impede the emergency response.

In April 2009, a month before the Commission on Human Rights then led by Leila Norma De Lima launched its investigation into the , Human Rights Watch published its groundbreaking report "You Can Die Anytime" about the extrajudicial killings in Davao City. It exposed the operations of the group of assassins ran from City Hall by then Mayor Rodrigo Duterte. HRW's current Asia director, Elaine Pearson, supervised the work on the report, which had taken months to research and publish. After publication, the report became a key document in the CHR's investigation.

Elaine was summoned to testify at the hearings in Davao City. There, she saw Duterte for the first time. She recounted her testimony and her brief encounter with the tyrant in her 2022 book "Chasing Wrongs and Rights," in which she devoted a whole chapter about Duterte and the DDS. "He had a haughty arrogance," Elaine wrote about Duterte. "I didn't like him one bit."

16 years later, inside the International Criminal Court in the Hague where Duterte is being held and tried for crimes against humanity for extrajudicial killings in the "drug war" and several Davao Death Squad killings, some of that "haughty arrogance" remains but, mostly, what people see is a defeated, frail-looking man now forced to confront -- and to account for -- his monstrosity.

"You Can Die Any Time" This 103-page report details the involvement of police and local government officials in targeted killings of alleged drug dealers and petty criminals, street children, and others, and describes the lack of any effort by the authorities to investigate the killings and bring those responsible to just...