Tens of thousands of people in the Philippines may have been killed in the war on drugs since mid-2016, amid "near impunity" for police and incitement to violence by top officials, the United Nations said on Thursday.
The drugs crackdown, launched by President Rodrigo Duterte after winning election on a platform of crushing crime, has been marked by police orders and high-level rhetoric that may have been interpreted as "permission to kill," it said.
Police, who do not need search or arrest warrants to conduct house raids, systematically force suspects to make self-incriminating statements or risk facing lethal force, the U.N. human rights office said in a report.
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