HEADQUARTERS PRESS BRIEFING BY SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS

Concerns that post-11 September anti-terrorism laws, policies and strategies had been used to undermine human rights across the world were evoked at a press briefing this morning by Hina Jilani, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Human Rights Defenders.

Ms. Jilani, who presented her report on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders to the Third Committee of the General Assembly yesterday, told correspondents that the report was an overview of consultations she had held with human rights defenders in different regions of the world.

She said that existing national security laws, which had undermined human rights in the past, had now been strengthened and more forcefully enforced in the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks.  “I am afraid that these laws and policies are affecting the work of human rights in general, but have resulted in gross violations of the rights of human rights defenders,” said Ms. Jilani.

In one country she had been told that people fighting and struggling against land evictions were being charged under anti-terrorist laws, and that in another country media laws were amended to make it a crime to report statements made by “so-called terrorists”, putting journalists and human rights defenders at risk.

The Special Representative was concerned that there were many instances where governments had used the campaign against terrorism to take action against pro-independence movements.  She added that anti-terrorism campaigns had given governments a pretext for extending military operations to occupied territories and using force.

There was one particular country, she said, where internal security laws had been reinforced using security threats as a justification.  Under such internal security laws, she noted, pro-democracy activists had been imprisoned.  It had become very easy for governments to target opponents by labelling them as terrorists, she stated.  Smear campaigns had been used by governments as a means to discredit human rights defenders protesting laws and policies that fell below the standards essential for the promotion and maintenance of human rights.

“I am also very concerned that governments are using the war on terrorism to justify the policy of detaining asylum seekers,” she said.  She also expressed concern that far too many governments were adopting laws defining ordinary forms of civil disobedience as terrorism, by creating new offences related to “incitement”, restricting rights of assembly and suspending normal legal guarantees by extending the period allowed for detentions without trial.

For her report, she said, she had held consultations in West Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and the European Mediterranean regions, and found similarities in the political, economic and social conditions which affected the rights and security of human rights defenders throughout those regions.

Human rights defenders, she said, often operated in situations of armed conflict and struggles for independence and self-determination.  She noted that the most serious conditions she found during her visits to different regions were in Latin America, where there had been a dramatic increase in threats to the security and safety of human rights defenders.

Some had been killed, said Ms. Jilani, while disappearances, arbitrary arrests and detentions had also been recorded.  But human rights defenders were not the only targets of intimidation and harrassments -- their families, too, were being targeted for intimidation.  As a result, she stated, many of those human rights defenders had to flee their countries.  She noted that human rights defenders were complaining that it was becoming more and more difficult for them to gain access to information in case of arbitrary arrests and detentions, making the work of monitoring human rights and State practices even more difficult.

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