28 June 2025

Responding to news that a journalist and transwoman human rights defender was killed in Mindanao, Amnesty International Philippines Acting Director Jepie Papa, said:

Amnesty International agrees with the recommendations of the Special Rapporteur who has called for the Philippine Government to “embark on more significant legal, policy and institutional changes to demonstrate its commitment to freedom of expression”.

The Philippine Coalition for the International Criminal Court (PCICC) expresses its strong opposition and grave concern over any proposal or consideration for the interim release of former President Rodrigo Duterte, who remains under active investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity arising from the thousands of killings perpetrated during the so-called “war on drugs.”

Amnesty International Philippines emphasized a deteriorating human rights situation in the Philippines during the last leg of its rolling launch of Amnesty International Report 2025: State of the World’s Human Rights in Manila. Marked by widespread impunity, shrinking civic space, persistent red-tagging of human rights defenders (HRDs) including journalists, indigenous cultural community leaders, and environmental activists, Amnesty International Philippines Acting Director, Jepie Papa, said that these issues are all underscored in the organization’s Human Rights Legislative Agenda for the 20th Congress updated from 2022 national elections following the mid-terms.

Iloilo City – Amnesty International Philippines, during its press conference in Iloilo City on Friday, raised serious concerns over what it calls “multiple burden” faced in the Visayas due to the continuing repression of human rights defenders and worsening climate-related disasters. 

TikTok is failing to address serious risks of harm to young users’ mental and physical health almost 18 months after Amnesty International highlighted these risks in a groundbreaking report. Ahead of the 2025 Mental Health Awareness Week, Amnesty International asked TikTok what changes the company had implemented since then. TikTok’s response listed familiar ‘well-being’ measures, most of them already in place when the research was conducted and failed to acknowledge the app’s “rabbit hole” problem. It also failed to produce evidence of any new targeted measures to address it.

Israel must immediately end its devastating siege on the occupied Gaza Strip which constitutes a genocidal act, a blatant form of unlawful collective punishment, and the war crime of using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, said Amnesty International, marking two months since Israel reimposed a ban on the entry of aid and commercial goods into the Strip on 2 March 2025.  

“Red-tagging” – the public vilification of human rights defenders and other targeted groups and individuals as alleged members and clandestine recruiters of the communist New People’s Army (NPA) – continued. This was despite a Supreme Court ruling in May that “red-tagging” threatens a person’s life, liberty and security. UN experts, including the Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression, made repeated calls on the government to denounce and penalize the practice.

The Trump administration’s anti-rights campaign is turbocharging harmful trends already present, gutting international human rights protections and endangering billions across the planet, Amnesty International warned today upon launching its annual report, The State of the World’s Human Rights.

Global executions hit their highest figure since 2015, as over 1,500 people were executed across 15 countries in 2024, said Amnesty International today as it released its annual report on the global use of the death penalty.

*Names changed to protect identity