War on terror 'threat to civil liberties'

Ivy Susanti, The Jakarta Post, Hanoi

The global campaign against terrorism has missed the target and has violated civil liberties, delegates at a forum said in Hanoi on Tuesday.

Ben Hayes from Statewatch, a London-based non-profit group that monitors state and civil liberties in Europe, said that there were similarities of government responses worldwide in the war against terrorism. He also noted that the empowerment of security apparatus in many countries had turned into a prospective security business.

"The war against terror has become the war against democracy," Hayes told the fifth Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM) People's Forum meeting while talking about antiterrorism and people's responses.

The three-day forum was formally inaugurated on Tuesday in the Vietnamese capital.

Hayes identified seven methods of dealing with terror issues, which in turn have been "terrorizing the global society".

He said that the campaign had encouraged the government to give extended power to the national police. "They delegate power to quiet popular protest, and there is also a new role for the military within the domestic police."

For example, Indonesian police received additional powers under the new terrorist law, which was passed after the Bali blasts in 2002.

The new responsibility is followed by the building of a global "security industrial complex" - which operates like multi- national corporations - promoting new technology of control and new methods of developing the domestic police, Hayes said.

He also pointed out some questionable methods to prevent terror attacks, such as detention without trial - often based on "evidence" allegedly obtained from other suspects imprisoned in places such as in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Hayes went on that say there had been a contamination of migration and development policies, particularly in the European Union (EU), and it had consequently blurred the lines distinguishing terrorists and migrants, which included the globalization of surveillance and control particularly in air travel -- as demanded by the United States.

"The presumption of innocence, which is the basic right in one's legal standing, is yet another casualty," Hayes said.

Laura Loudenius, a peace activist from Committee 100 in Finland, commented that there should be more public discussion on militarism, policing and security business to control these activities. "The fastest growing sector is the security business, but we need more public debate."

She suggested the public debate be carried out in the media to raise public awareness. She also said that terrorist attacks were not all about economic powerlessness, but more of a cultural issue, in which groups of people were perceived as "the Others", a concept that had detached them from the whole of society.

Scholars said that some states had oversimplified the term "terrorism" and failed to take the social and political contexts that prompts such violence into consideration.

Achin Vanaik of the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace in India, told the gathering that some countries fell short of recognizing the differences between state and non-state terrorism in their strategy to fight terrorism in their own countries. Consequently, a group of people who fight for justice and economic equality could also be viewed as potential terrorists.

"Both give different messages. In the non-state terror, the message is addressed in two directions: the state and the whole population. While state terror is aimed at the state's opponents ... The essential problem is the state terrorism," said the fellow at the Transnational Institute, a research organization based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

"To recognize any political terrorism means to recognize the context. Terrorism is not a pathology and it is not pathological," he added.

He said one way to address the problem of terrorism was to strengthen international law and institutions.

The ASEM People's Forum is being attended by people's organizations, citizens' networks, social movements, trade unions and non-governmental organizations from Asia and Europe. This forum, aimed at enhancing understanding of social issues and cooperation, is part of the ASEM Summit, which will be held next month in Hanoi. It is also aimed at promoting the role of civil society in the cooperation between the two continents.