Human rights must be protected while combating terror: Experts

Human rights should not be sacrificed for political convenience in the fight against terrorism, two UN experts said today.
"The suffering of victims should not be misused as a pretext to deny the human rights of those suspected of terrorism, to justify emergency measures including excessive and disproportionate executive powers, repression of legitimate peaceful opposition activities or for other restrictive political purposes," they said.
Ben Emmerson, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism and Heiner Bielefeldt, Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, said, "It is only by strict adherence to international human rights standards that counter-terrorism strategies can ultimately succeed."

"Just as much as we condemn terrorism, particularly at a time when the international community reaffirms its unreserved commitment to combat it, we must demand that human rights be respected in the context of such a challenge," the UN experts said, directing their comments at governments currently engaged in counter-terrorism campaigns.
Special Rapporteurs are part of the UN Human Rights Council's Special Procedures-the independent fact-finding and monitoring mechanism on country-specific issues or global thematic issues.
The UN member states had adopted a common strategic approach to combat terrorism effectively called the Global Counter-Terrorism strategy in 2006.
The strategy and plan of action include a reaffirmation of UN member states to ensure that measures taken to combat terrorism comply with their obligations under international law, in particular human rights law, refugee law and international humanitarian law.

"Many observers of such violence [terrorist acts] tend to underestimate the complexity of these phenomena by using the label 'religion' broadly and loosely while it is important to take also non-religious factors more seriously," said Bielefeldt and Emmerson.