19 August 2021

Following a new report from Sweden-based media foundation Qurium on August 17, 2021, human rights alliance Karapatan once again slammed the recent spate of cyber attacks against its website karapatan.org [...].

Qurium noted that the attacks “[took] place amid the online solidarity campaign #StopTheKillingsPH” as “human rights organizations and advocates across the world asserted the call to stop the killings in the Philippines and to prosecute President Rodrigo Duterte for his crimes against the Filipino people.The event also marks one year since the killing of human rights worker Zara Alvarez, that formed a part of Karapatan.”

“These new series of cowardly cyber attacks against our website were obviously made to prevent the public from accessing our reports on the worsening state of human rights in the Philippines — and we know whose interests these attacks serve,” Karapatan Secretary General Cristina Palabay stated.

According to Qurium, the attacks were composed of application layer web floods, a type of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS), specifically against karapatan.org/resources, which contains the directory of Karapatan’s periodical monitors, year-end reports, policy position papers, and other public resources.

Palabay said that “specifically targeting Karapatan’s online resources only means that these attacks were clearly trying to suppress our documentation and human rights work, and of course, the people’s right to freedom of information.”

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