Manila Times/Zamboanga City

A group of war refugees falsely accused of being Moro rebels, and who were tortured and detained by security forces have filed charges against their captors in the southern Philippines.

The Mindanao Human Rights Action Centre (MinHRAC) said eight Moro villagers filed counter-charges against soldiers and policemen who arrested them on June 23 in the village of Kulasi in General Salipada Pendatun town in Maguindanao province.

The eight men, including three teenagers, were arrested while on their way home to get food supplies for their families at the evacuation camps.

The human rights centre said the men—now called the Bagumbayan 8 after the name of their community—have submitted their sworn statements which were supported by affidavits from 16 witnesses who are neighbours and who are also displaced by the fighting between government troops and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters.

“Besides vehemently denying the allegations of their captors, the Bagumbayan 8 accused their captors of physically coercing confession and planting of evidence to support the false charges against them,” the MinHRAC said.

The refugees told the soldiers that they were just taking advantage of the lull in fighting to go back to their homes to get desperately needed food for their families.

They also showed the soldiers a copy of an official government list of refugees from the municipal social welfare office that included their names, but the military instead detained them after accusing them of being rebels.

“However, instead of getting protection from the AFP and PNP after they had made clear they are civilians with a white flag and by raising their shirts to reveal they were not carrying any weapon, they were arrested, tied and blindfolded while being detained. They were made to spend the night at an abandoned elementary school where they were beaten up to coerce them into confessing that they are terrorists,” according to the statement.

One of those detained recounted a disturbing attempt to manufacture evidence against them.

The refugee, who sustained a rope burn injury on his arm, said that when he and his companions were brought by the soldiers to a nearby school, several men clad in civilian and camouflage uniform, took him to a place reeking heavily with burnt gunpowder.

There, this detainee, who was blindfolded, felt someone grab his hands, pry his fingers open, rub his hands and say: “These are the fingers that held the gun.”

Later on, after the military interrogation, he found out that both his hands and fingernails bore traces of a black substance he believed to have been applied by the man who touched his hands and planted gunpowder.

The arrest of the refugees triggered protests among locals and a call for authorities to free the innocent civilians.