MANILA: A cramped hidden cell with about a dozen inmates held allegedly on illegal drug charges was discovered behind a bookshelf in a police station in the Philippines, the Commission on Human Rights said on Friday.
The secret cell was found during a raid on the police station in the slum district of Tondo in the capital city of Manila on Thursday, said Diana De Leon, a lawyer with commission’s investigation unit.
“The secret detention cell was small with 12 detainees inside, three women and nine men, allegedly held on drug cases,” she said. “There was no light and the condition was inhumane.”
“Most of the detainees alleged that they were beaten and tortured,” she added. The detainees have been in the cell for one week without being processed for the charges against them, according to Gilbert Boisner, a regional director of the human rights commission.
“I was shocked,” he said, adding that the inmates alleged that police were demanding between $800 and $4,000 for them to be released.
The discovery of the secret jail “is just the latest sign of how police are exploiting Duterte’s abusive anti-drug campaign for personal gain,” said New York-based group Human Rights Watch, which investigates alleged abuses worldwide. “Expect unlawful police abuses in the name of Duterte’s ‘war on drugs’ to continue until the United Nations establishes an urgently needed independent, international investigation into the killings, and the secret jails that are part of it,” the group said in a statement.
Police Regional Director Oscar Albayalde sacked the commander of station where the hidden detention facility was found.
“We must recognize that this problem is not just in one police station but almost in all our stations region wide,” he said in a statement, adding that he has called for an investigation into such practices. “We will not tolerate any illegal act committed by our policemen,” he added.
Albayalde urged local government units to help police build better detention cells, saying, “This is an eye-opener for all of us to revisit the need for better cell detention and improvement of our jail facilities.” — dpa
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