9/11 Anti terrorism laws should be scrapped

PARIS - Security laws passed after the September 11 attacks that have undermined fundamental freedoms should be repealed, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) said.
The attacks marked "the beginning of a downward spiral in rights and freedoms," the group said in a statement.
"Many countries, including the democratic ones, starting with the United States and the United Kingdom, immediately reacted to the attacks in New York by adopting special laws that roundly ignored human freedoms," it added.
Many authoritarian states also used the international effort to combat terrorism as a pretext to crack down on legitimate protest, FIDH said.
"Propaganda that legitimated violations of the right to freedom, on the pretext of fighting terrorism and conveyed through a reflex of well-stoked and manipulated fear, led to the gradual abandonment of the essential values of humanity," FIDH Honorary President Patrick Baudouin.
The statement cited detaining people for undetermined periods of time without proferring specific charges as one of many worrying international trends.
The group welcomed the change in "public discourse" following Barack Obama's election, but criticised his failure so far to reverse the policies of his predecessor George W. Bush, specifically noting an unkept promise to close the Guantanamo prison.
"In this situation, FIDH calls for the abrogation of all liberticidal legislation adopted or reinforced after 11 September on the pretext of the fight against terrorism," the statement said.
"FIDH also calls upon the states to give greater consideration to human rights in their fight against terrorism."

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