In a resolution passed Thursday, the European Parliament in Strasbourg called “for the immediate release of Senator Leila M. De Lima” — the most vocal critic of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte — and asked that she be provided with “adequate security whilst in detention.”
The resolution also called on Philippine authorities “to ensure a fair trial, recalling the right to the presumption of innocence, to drop all politically motivated charges against her and to end any further acts of harassment against her.”
Known as the most vocal critic of Philippine President Duterte’s bloody war on drugs, de Lima was arrested late February on drug-trafficking charges.
“It’s an attempt to intimidate his critics — to bring about a chilling effect,” she told TIME in an exclusive interview a day after she was taken into custody, adding that she was Duterte’s first political prisoner.
The European Parliament also called on the E.U. to support “an independent international investigation into unlawful killings and other violations by the Philippines” in the context of Duterte’s war on drugs.
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