UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions Agnes Callamard has allegedly been arrested over corruption allegations, as per the claim of several articles on Facebook. Despite how suspicious the source of the story is, it still gained hundreds of shares on the social media site.
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Facebook page “Boycott Abs-Cbn Station” shared the story.
Other Facebook users also shared it to different pro-Duterte Facebook groups.
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The source of the story turned out to be a website called gma-tv.com.
It even bears the logo of GMA News TV, making the site instantly suspicious for trying to steal another media site’s identity.
Dated May 12, the story claimed that Callamard was arrested on that day after landing in Geneva. It further claimed that “investigators” found out that the UN rapporteur had private meetings with “senior people in Philippines” to find ways to undermine President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration through UN. They allegedly found enough evidence to show that she was bribed to bring Duterte down.
There was even a long statement from one of the said “investigators,” a certain Johnney Kelly.
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“We have investigated her moves and it is clear the speaker has been making night meetings with drug lords in Philippines to have biased solution for the ongoing drug war in Philippines. We have arrested her to give room for more investigation, we have massive evidence on how she was bribed by senior government officials including a senator in Philippines. We have stopped her from transacting any business on behalf of United Nations until she is probed fully. We are not going to relent until justice is achieved.”
However, we could not find credible sources that could verify that Callamard was indeed arrested or that she was investigated for bribery allegations after visiting the Philippines on the first week of May.
What we found, though, is that several member states of the UN asked the Philippines to allow Callamard to conduct an investigation into the alleged extrajudicial killings in the Philippines that were linked to Duterte’s drug war. These member states include Bulgaria, France, Hungary, Lithuania, Ghana, Peru and Latvia. Other countries also expressed concern over the alleged EJKs in the country, such as Australia, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Croatia, Czech Republic, Vatican City, Iceland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Sierra Leone, Spain, Slovenia, Switzerland, United Kingdom and United States.
Callamard was previously invited to investigate EJKs but with certain conditions from President Duterte.
The fact alone that gma-tv.com is trying to imitate GMA News Online and even copied the latter’s logo makes it an unreliable source.
Moreover, GMA News Science and Technology editor Timothy James Dimacali said that gma-tv.com is indeed a fake news site and not related to GMA News Online.
Sources: ( philstar.com )
Be Informed. Beat the Trolls, Share the Truth!
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