Police raid targets displaced Indigenous students

Rights groups, activists and academic institutions have condemned Philippine authorities following a raid targeting Indigenous Lumad students who sought shelter at a Catholic university after being forced from their homes because of fighting between the military and communist rebels, reports Al Jazeera.

Monday’s roundup, which the government insisted was a “rescue operation”, is seen as part of President Rodrigo Duterte’s new war against the communists, who have been waging an armed rebellion for half a century. The Duterte administration recently declared the communists a “terrorist” organisation, after talks with the group collapsed. Since then, it has also accused mainstream left-leaning political parties, workers groups and even academics of acting as “fronts” for the communist rebels – a government campaign that has become known as “red-tagging”. Critics accuse the president of using “communism” as an excuse to crack down on any groups who oppose his administration’s policies.

The Catholic university has provided shelter and makeshift education facilities to the Lumad students since March last year after they fled their homes in the southern island of Mindanao due to armed conflict. According to the Save Our Schools Network, which advocates for the education of the Lumad children, at least 176 of their schools in Mindanao have been shut down by the government, depriving at least 5,500 Indigenous children of education.
Full report on the Al Jazeera site