War on terror 'threat to civil liberties'

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.