A death squad is an armed group whose primary activity is carrying out extrajudicial killings or forced disappearances as part of political repression, genocide, ethnic cleansing, or revolutionary terror. Except in rare cases in which they are formed by an insurgency, domestic or foreign governments actively participate in, support, or ignore the death squad's activities. Death squads are distinct from assassination from their permanent organization and the larger number of victims who may not be prominent individuals. Other violence, such as rape, torture, arson, or bombings may be carried out alongside murders. They may comprise a secret police force, paramilitary militia groups, government soldiers, policemen, or combinations thereof. They may also be organized as vigilantes, bounty hunters, mercenaries, or contract killers. When death squads are not controlled by the state, they may consist of insurgent forces or organized crime, such as the ones used by cartels.
Operation Condor was a United States-backed campaign of political repression and state terrorism, involving intelligence operations, CIA-backed coups, as well as assassinations of left-wing sympathizers, liberals and democrats and their families in South America which formally existed from 1975 to 1983. Operation Condor was officially and formally implemented in November 1975 by the right-wing dictatorships of the Southern Cone of South America.
The Thahan Phran AKA the Royal Thai Paramilitary Force is a paramilitary light infantry force which patrols the borders of Thailand and is an auxiliary of the Royal Thai Army (RTA) and the Royal Thai Marine Corps (RTMC). The Thahan Phran operate in conjunction with the Border Patrol Police (BPP), but are trained and equipped to engage in combat while the BPP is primarily a law enforcement agency. In Thailand there is a common name of black clothing unit (นักรบเสื้อดำ) or the Black Army due to their wearing of black uniforms.
Pedro Arrupe Gondra, SJ was a Spanish Basque priest who served as the 28th Superior General of the Society of Jesus from 1965 to 1983. He has been called a second founder of the Society, as he led the Jesuits in the implementation of the Second Vatican Council, especially with regard to faith that does justice and preferential option for the poor.
The Salvadoran Civil War was a twelve-year period of civil war in El Salvador that was fought between the government of El Salvador and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), a coalition or "umbrella organization" of left-wing groups backed by the Cuban regime of Fidel Castro as well as the Soviet Union. A coup on 15 October 1979 followed by government killings of anti-coup protesters is widely seen as the start of civil war. The war did not formally end until 16 January 1992 with the signing of the Chapultepec Peace Accords in Mexico City.
Rodrigo Roa Duterte, also known as Digong, Rody, and by the initials DU30 and PRRD, is a Filipino lawyer and politician who served as the 16th president of the Philippines from 2016 to 2022. He is the chairperson of PDP–Laban, the ruling political party in the Philippines during his presidency. Duterte is the first president of the Philippines to be from Mindanao, and is the oldest person to assume office, beginning his term at age 71.
Galvarino Sergio Apablaza Guerra, nicknamed "Comandante Salvador", is a Chilean Marxist guerrilla and former member of the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front (FPMR), which opposed the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. He has participated in several highly publicized kidnappings and murders.
The Cinemanila International Film Festival is an annual film festival held in Manila, Philippines. It was founded by Filipino filmmaker Amable "Tikoy" Aguiluz in 1999. The focus of the festival is on the cinema of the Philippines as well as Southeast Asian cinema.
An extrajudicial killing is the deliberate killing of a person without the lawful authority granted by a judicial proceeding. It typically refers to government authorities, whether lawfully or unlawfully, targeting specific people for death, which in authoritarian regimes often involves political, trade union, dissident, religious and social figures. The term is typically used in situations that imply the human rights of the victims have been violated; deaths caused by legal police actions or legal warfighting on a battlefield are generally not included, even though military and police forces are often used for killings seen by critics as illegitimate. The label "extrajudicial killing" has also been applied to organized, lethal enforcement of extralegal social norms by non-government actors, including lynchings and honor killings.
Bernabe Buscayno, also called Kumander Dante, is the founder of the New People's Army, the military wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines.
!Oka Tokat is a Philippine supernatural horror drama television series which originally aired on ABS-CBN from June 24, 1997 to May 7, 2002 every Tuesday night, replacing Abangan ang Susunod Na Kabanata. It starred Agot Isidro alongside with Ricky Davao, Carmina Villaroel, Alessandra De Rossi, Rica Peralejo, Diether Ocampo, Jericho Rosales, Angelika Dela Cruz, Marc Solis, Bojo Molina, Paolo Contis and later, Emman Abeleda, Shaina Magdayao, Alwyn Uytingco, Joy Chiong, and Jiro Manio on its reformat of the series. Its title is the reverse spelling of the phrase "Takot ako!" ; hence, the exclamation point at the beginning. Later on December 4, 2001, !Oka Tokat was reformatted as a comedy horror adventure series.
Corinne Dufka is an American photojournalist, human rights researcher, criminal investigator, and social worker. She is the recipient of a MacArthur "genius grant" Fellowship.
During the Salvadoran Civil War, on 16 November 1989, Salvadoran Army soldiers killed six Jesuits and two others, the caretaker's wife and daughter, at their residence on the campus of Central American University in San Salvador, El Salvador. Polaroid photos of the Jesuits' bullet-riddled bodies were on display in the hallway outside the Chapel, and a memorial rose garden was planted beside the chapel to commemorate the murders.
The Central American Resource Center (CARECEN) are two community-based organizations that seek to foster the comprehensive development of the Latino community. CARECEN in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan region was founded in 1981 to protect the rights of refugees arriving from conflict in Central America and to help ease their transition by providing legal services. CARECEN provides direct services in immigration, housing and citizenship while also promoting empowerment, civil rights advocacy and civic training for Latinos. Another CARECEN is also located in Los Angeles and which was established two years after the D.C. location.
Human rights abuses in Jammu and Kashmir range from mass killings, enforced disappearances, torture, rape and sexual abuse to political repression and suppression of freedom of speech. The Indian Army, Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), and Border Security Personnel (BSF) have been accused of committing severe human rights abuses against Kashmiri civilians. According to Seema Kazi, militant groups have also been held responsible for similar crimes, but the vast majority of abuses have been perpetrated by the armed forces of the Indian government.
The Philippine drug war, known as the War on Drugs, is the intensified anti-drug campaign of the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte, who served office from June 30, 2016, to June 30, 2022. The campaign reduced drug proliferation in the country, but has been marred by extrajudicial killings allegedly perpetrated by the police and unknown assailants. An estimated 7,742 civilians have been killed in "anti-drug operations" carried out by the government and its supporters between 2016 and 2021.
The following is a timeline of protests against Rodrigo Duterte, the 16th President of the Philippines, and his policies. Issues were addressed in the protests including the war on drugs, employment issues, anti-terror law, and the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The dictatorship of Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos in the 1970s and 1980s is historically remembered for its record of human rights abuses, particularly targeting political opponents, student activists, journalists, religious workers, farmers, and others who fought against the Marcos dictatorship. Based on the documentation of Amnesty International, Task Force Detainees of the Philippines, and similar human rights monitoring entities, historians believe that the Marcos dictatorship was marked by 3,257 known extrajudicial killings, 35,000 documented tortures, 77 'disappeared', and 70,000 incarcerations.
Red-tagging in the Philippines is the malicious harassment and blacklisting of individuals or organizations critical or not fully supportive of the actions of a sitting government administration in the country. These individuals and organizations are "tagged" as either communist or terrorist or both, regardless of their actual political beliefs or affiliations. It is a type of incitement and has pernicious effects on its targets. Red-tagging may be performed by either security forces, government officials or shills.
The 2019 Turkish offensive into north-eastern Syria, code-named Operation Peace Spring by Turkey, was a cross-border military operation conducted by the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) and the Syrian National Army (SNA) against the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and later Syrian Arab Army (SAA) in northern Syria.
