As a contribution to the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism’s mandate, SQN presented an input focused on the dangers of broadening the definition of terrorism and its consequencies in the regression of individual and collective rights.
In Europe, mass protests have increased, and, at the same time, there have been represive and violent responses from States. Instead of facilitating the right to protest, Governments have increased extreme measures to repress it.
Among these measures, there are false allegations of terrorism against peaceful movements, dissidents, political parties or civil society in order to dismantle or criminalize their ideologies and organizations. Abuse of anti-terrorism legislation has been also used to justify spyware against political dissent, social activists, journalists, human rights defenders, and lawyers.
In several countries, climate activists are considered terrorists, as in France activists of the movement Soulèvements de la Terre. Poland, a few days before the UN Conference on Climate Change, COP24, issued an anti-terrorist alert and denied the entry to the country to at least 13 climate activists. In Spain, 14 activists were arrested by the Anti-Terrorist Brigade for throwing red paint on the walls of Parliament to protest against its climate inaction. In Germany, United Kingdom and France civil nonviolent protest movements against climate change are often labeled by the respective governments as eco-terrorists.
The police resort to anti-terrorist laws to suppress behaviours that pose no real risk to security, under the pretext of preventing acts of terrorism, can be seen in France with the confiscation of balls and casseroles from activists in the city of Herault prior to a visit by President Emmanuel Macron last April.
In Spain, the counter-terrorism legislation is being used to persecute nonviolent acts of activism, and it targets journalists, human rights defenders and political activists. 12 people are currently charged with terrorism for having participated in the so called Tsunami Democràtic nonviolent peaceful demonstrations to protest the Spanish Supreme Court’s sentence that condemned the 9 Catalan pro-referendum leaders in 2019.
Besides, in most European countries, anti-terrorist legislation has been modified, and the definition of terrorism in many states has become so vague that it can include legal expressions of dissent, such as nonviolent protests.
In many cases, authorities have used arrests and pretrial detention in terrorism-related prosecutions as a form of summary punishment against dissidents with the aim of generating a chilling effect on the general public.
For all of this, false allegations of terrorism have to be denounced and it is necessary to establish mechanisms to monitor the proper application of the anti-repressive legislation.
So, to prevent States from abusing anti-terrorism legislation, SQN proposed a set of considerations based on the definition of terrorism and the commitment to democratic principles, human rights and justice.
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The Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism. Call for inputs
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https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures-human-rights-council/reports-and-related-calls-input
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December 2023