Filipino cops torture suspect by yanking rope tied to penis

[Shroom Man 777]

Police held in Philippine torture video probe

(AFP) – 5 hours ago

MANILA — Eleven Philippine policemen appeared at a disciplinary hearing on Friday over a torture video allegedly filmed on a mobile phone at a police station in a Manila slum.

The graphic recording, which has enraged the public since it was broadcast on national television on Tuesday, showed a man in civilian clothes whipping a naked man writhing on a white tiled floor.

In between blows, the torturer yanked a rope that appeared to be tied to the victim's penis.

Chief Superintendent Roberto Rongavilla, head of a police task force investigating the incident, said a formal complaint against the policemen had been read at a police internal affairs hearing.

"These people are now in the custody of the Manila police," he said.

All 11 men had been posted at the Asuncion community police precinct in the high-crime Manila slum district of Tondo, but were suspended after a public outcry over the video sparked a government investigation.

Rongavilla said the officer featured in the torture video was the former commander of the precinct. Local news reports said he had denied the allegations.

Rongavilla said the naked man was a suspected robber whose wife had reported him missing since March.

"He was part of a group engaged in holdups and bag-snatching," Rongavilla said. "It appears some other members of the gang had been killed in clashes with the police."

While allegations of torture and extra-judicial killings carried out by police and military are nothing new, the broadcast of the video was the first time such an incident has been seen on public television.

Local television network ABS-CBN, which broadcast the clip, said an unnamed informant filmed the scene with a mobile phone, but it was unclear when it was taken.

Rongavilla told ABS-CBN that the investigation would also look into allegations that the officer accused of torturing the naked man had committed similar offences.

"Many people are coming out alleging that their sons and husbands had been given similar treatment," he added.

Finally, the Philippines pulls through and gives me news weird enough to match the usual real-life reports of insanity. I am not surprised at this though, since we've got governors with death squads murdering political opponents and burying them in mass graves (talk about a political low point!), and military guys who disappear dozens of suspected-commie doctors and nurses for going on a medical mission. Philippines is a great country.

[Ilya Muromets]

Well, shit. It's times like this that really make me reconsider my decision not to be like Shroom (and crap knows how many Filipinos) and just fuck this place for another country.

Oh, and the local television media displayed their usual good taste by showing the black and white torture video with censoring so slight it's very clear what's going on. Again and again and again. As if the showing of Moro rebels beheading soldiers didn't cause enough controversy before. Stay classy, Philippine news media.

[Shroom Man 777]

Personally, I don't think such things should be censored. Those corpses they dug out from the mass graves, they also blurred everything out so you couldn't even see anything. They shouldn't have. We should see these things as they are. We're blind enough to these things as it is.

[Ilya Muromets]

Yeah, well, I'd rather not have brutal dong-torture displayed in detail while I'm eating dinner thank you very much. And, personally, if I were the poor guy's family, it would piss me the fuck off and horrify me to have to see a video of him being brutalized on the evening news over and over again.

[Shroom Man 777]

True, that. I just think that with this shit happening, it's best for people to see it for what it is and to know about this crap. Maybe it's just me, but I hardly know what's going on in the country sometimes (lots of times).

[aerius]

Well, I guess the only positive thing I can say about it is this; at least he wasn't forcibly sodomized with a toilet plunger or broom stick.

[Shaun]

Maybe allow them to see what's really happening in their own time, rather than on the evening news they may be watching whilst eating their dinner.

[Kanastrous]

Seems the solution is to not watch the news over dinner.

I mean, really, even when the lead story isn't a torture video is the news usually so pleasant that it's dinner-table viewing?

[White Haven]

So your tender digestion is more important than exposing brutal police corruption to the light of public scrutiny in a manner difficult to ignore. Oi.

[Ilya Muromets]

Seems the solution is to not watch the news over dinner.

I mean, really, even when the lead story isn't a torture video is the news usually so pleasant that it's dinner-table viewing?

Dinner tables right across the living room, with the TV very visible from where I was sitting. Someone else was watching the news.

So your tender digestion is more important than exposing brutal police corruption to the light of public scrutiny in a manner difficult to ignore. Oi.

Right, and that's also a perfect rebuttal for the second part of my main problem with this: the family did not consent to having the thing show on TV. Repeatedly in the span of ten minutes. And are now going ballistic at the news media because they had to sit through the horror of seeing the torture of a family member over and over again on national TV.

But, hey, the tender sensibilities of a grieving family are hardly more important than exposing police corruption to the light of public scrutiny in a manner difficult to ignore, right? Then again, I guess the families of mere tortured criminals don't deserve that kind of dignity.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Well, I guess the only positive thing I can say about it is this; at least he wasn't forcibly sodomized with a toilet plunger or broom stick.

Thanks, Aerius. By the third post I was alarmed because someone hadn't brought up a US example yet. I was thinking to myself "What the fuck is going on here?" I was even starting to check to see if the planets were aligned or perhaps the sky had fallen, but you jumped in and saved the day. Thanks.

On a related note I think we need an equivalent to Godwins Law. It seems whenever the brutality of another country is exposed on this forum someone is bound by universe law to bring up the US equivalent just to remind everyone that bad shit happens in the US...even though we weren't talking about it at all.