British government sells spy equipment to Philippines
(Baonghean.vn) - The British government has sold nearly $200,000 worth of high-tech spy equipment to the Philippines, providing President Rodrigo Duterte with the tools to take down drug dealers and addicts as part of his brutal crackdown on drug crime.
The equipment, ordered by the Duterte administration, includes a device called IMSI Catcher that allows it to intercept any calls using the network and record the entire conversation, while also being a tool to monitor users' internet activity.
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| Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. Photo: AP |
President Duterte has admitted to authorizing wiretapping of at least two mayors whom he accused of being “drug-addicted politicians,” including Ozamiz City mayor Reynaldo Parojinog.
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| The United Nations has expressed concern over the Philippines' war on drugs. Photo: AP |
Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle, a member of the Arms Export Control Committee, accused the British government of allowing the Philippine president to carry out a violent “hunt”, “leaving us implicated in the deaths of thousands of Filipinos. This sad episode shows that our arms export control regime is crumbling. The government has failed to uphold its basic legal obligations”.
This export to the Philippines appears to be in violation of British law, which states that the government is not allowed to “issue an export licence where there is a clear risk that the equipment exported could be used for internal repression.”
The British government has also sold spyware to Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, Bahrain and Egypt./.
