UNITED NATIONS, Aug 10 (IPS) - Two leading human rights groups have criticised the U.N. Security Council's Counter-Terrorism Committee for refusing to castigate governments that crack down on human rights in the name of fighting terrorism. Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Human Rights First say governments the world over, including the major powers, continue to abuse human rights deploying the language of counter-terrorism. ''But the U.N. Security Council has been conspicuously silent about this dangerous trend,'' Joanna Weschler of Human Rights Watch (HRW), told IPS. She said the council at first was ''explicitly eager'' to include human rights in its examination of counter-terrorism, but later concluded that human rights was not within its scope. As a result, she added, ''the council has chosen to be passive.''
Neil Hicks of Human Rights First says, ''clearly, there has been leadership from (U.N. Secretary-General Kofi) Annan''. ''But unfortunately member states have not been responsive,'' he told Annan has consistently maintained that human rights should not be a victim of terrorism. For instance, he told delegates in 2003 that the Security Council should ensure the counter-terrorism measures it adopts ''do not unduly curtail human rights or give others a pretext to do so.'' Hicks said the problem will exist as long as the Counter-terrorism Committee is located within the Security Council, the U.N.'s most senior decision-making body. ''You are not going to get (members) to do an independent job,'' he argued.
Russia, a veto-wielding permanent member of the council and current chairman of the committee, is battling an insurgency in Chechnya, a predominantly Muslim region fighting for a separate nation-state. ''In Chechnya,'' Hicks said, ''the conflict has been painted as a 'war against terrorism'. Whoever questions the human rights situation resulting from that conflict is accused of being in league with terrorists.'' The United States, another permanent member of the Security Council, is also at fault, he said. Those who criticise U.S. government policy have also been accused of supporting terrorism. ''But more broadly we have seen official U.S. policy that has called into question compliance with international standards and U.N. conventions.We have also seen official memos designed to circumvent these safeguards,'' Hicks added.
In a 17-page briefing paper released Tuesday, HRW said that when suspects are convicted on terrorism-related charges in unfair judicial proceedings or as a result of being tortured, real terrorist threats might not have been removed from society. And when human rights continue to be abused in the name of counter-terrorism, Weschler said, ''both causes
suffer.'' The briefing paper, titled 'Hear No Evil, See No Evil: the U.N. Security Council's Approach to Human Rights Violations in the Global Counter-Terrorism Effort', urges the body to ''immediately appoint'' at least one human rights expert to the committee's newly created executive directorate.
It also asked council members to pay particular attention to governments conducting mass arrests of terrorism suspects. ''Either those states face an alarming terrorist threat and need immediate international assistance, or counter-terrorism legislation is being used excessively, inappropriately or perhaps opportunistically.'' In its report, HRW singles out five countries: Egypt, Uzbekistan, Malaysia, Morocco and Sweden, as violators of human rights in their efforts to combat terrorism.
Asked why the United States was not on the list, Weschler said the five countries identified are ones where HRW had done ''fresh research or had ongoing cases." The group did a separate report on abuses of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. troops in the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad last month. The soldiers were accused of torturing and humiliating the inmates while treating them as terrorists and insurgents.
'Unfortunately, but predictably, many governments are using the anti-terrorism slogan as a rationale for limiting human rights,'' John Quigley, professor of international law at the Ohio State University, told IPS. Such repressive measures are unlikely to curb terrorism, and may even encourage it, particularly in the longer term, he said. ''The terrorism problem could better be addressed by the U.N. Security Council by
restricting outside involvement in the domestic affairs of Third World countries, particularly in the Middle East, and were it to
shoulder its long-neglected responsibility to bring a just solution, based on accepted legal principles, to the Palestinian-
Israeli conflict,'' Quigley suggested.
Hicks said the "war against terrorism" has also jeopardised the world's human rights defenders. Since the terrorist attacks on the United States on Sep. 11, 2001, he added, human rights defenders in some countries have been increasingly identified as terrorists. In Colombia, the government continues to habitually refer to human rights organisations as terrorist groups. Colombian President Alvaro Uribe releases a statement every month equating the government's human rights critics with terrorists, according to Hicks.
In the United States, a law called the USA Patriot Act passed in response to 9/11 has given the government far reaching powers that threaten both civil liberties and human rights. ''The Patriot Act is probably not the worst element of U.S. counter-terrorism policy, but it certainly has its problems." Other governments that have emulated the United States have justified their actions by saying, ''we are going to have a counter-terrorism law like the USA Patriot Act,'' said Hicks. What they mean, he added, is they are going to have a law that is disrespectful of international human rights obligations.
