MANILA, Jan 19 (Reuters) - Philippine students and activists
protested on Tuesday against a government decision to allow
security forces to patrol the campuses of the country's biggest
university after authorities accused it of being a breeding
ground for communist rebels.
President Rodrigo Duterte's government has stepped up
efforts to end a Maoist-led rebellion, one of the world's
longest insurgencies that has killed more than 40,000 people.
But the United Nations had warned in a report that
"red-tagging", or labelling people and groups as communists or
terrorists, and incitement to violence have been rife in the
Southeast Asian nation. The government, in a decision made public late on Monday,
scrapped a 1989 agreement that had prevented soldiers and police
from entering the 17 campuses of the University of the
Philippines (UP) without consent, except during emergencies or
when in hot pursuit.
"This signals greater repression, harassment and harm among
activists, youth and students and other people (who) they
maliciously tag as communists, terrorists and will result in the
militarisation of campuses," Eleanor de Guzman, secretary for
human rights of a left-wing labour group, told a crowd of about
100 protesters.
Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, justifying the decision
to scrap the 1989 agreement, said in a statement the
112-year-old university "has become the breeding ground of
intransigent individuals and groups whose extremist beliefs have
inveigled students to join their ranks to fight against the
government".
A number of UP students, some killed in military operations
or captured, had been identified as members of the communist
party's armed wing, the defence ministry said in a letter to the
university's president, without providing evidence.
Academics and politicians also condemned the scrapping of
the agreement saying it threatened academic freedom and opened
the door to red tagging.
University President Danilo Concepcion urged the defence
ministry to reconsider the decision while Vice President Maria
Leonor Robredo, the opposition leader, said the action was
"designed to silence criticism".
Since coming into power in 2016, Duterte's government has
seen repeated breakdowns in peace talks with the communist
rebels.