Terror Blacklists Blasted
January 24, 2008
The Council of Europe, the EU's rights watchdog, rules urged the United Nations and the European Union to overhaul procedures to blacklist individuals and groups suspected of having links to terrorism.
Not only does the practice violate human rights, the lawmakers concluded, but they are "completely arbitrary," according to a statement released by the 47-member body.
A report commissioned by the rights body said people were blacklisted on the basis of "mere suspicion" and called the measures "deplorable and violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms."
Harsh penalties against suspects
Dick Marty, a Swiss senator and former prosecutor who has published critical reports into alleged anti-terrorist practices by states and institutions, including reported secret CIA prisons on European soil, said those affected by the terrorist blacklists had absolutely no rights to defend themselves against terrorist allegations.
"I have seldom experienced anything as unfair as the compilation of these lists," Marty said at the European Parliament in Strasbourg this week.
According to the report, around 370 people and 130 groups or organizations are currently on the UN's blacklist. They include alleged Taliban individuals and those linked to al Qaeda. The EU lists 60 people or groups -- including the radical Palestinian group Hamas and the Basque separatist group, ETA.
Set up after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, the lists impose a number of penalties on those suspected of backing terrorism. They include freezing suspects' assets and preventing them from traveling without giving them a court hearing or disclosing the evidence against them.
The Council of Europe said in its report that many suspects on the lists only discovered that they were on it after they were stopped at a border while travelling or when their bank accounts were frozen.
"People remain on these lists for years without knowing why, and their lives are ruined," Marty said.
Marty's investigation into the practice was sparked by the case of a 78-year-old Italian citizen of Arab descent, Youssef Nada whose business was ruined after he landed on the blacklist.
The CIA reportedly suspected Nada of belonging to a group of financiers behind the Sept. 11 attacks. But a four-year investigation by Swiss authorities into Nada's case was suspended in 2005 due to a lack of evidence. Nada's assets were seized and he was barred from leaving his home of 30 years in Switzerland. Nada's name remains on the terror blacklist.
Top EU court may rule against UN practice
The UN system is at present being scrutinized by the EU's top court and there is a strong likelihood it may rule that the 27-member bloc has violated basic rights by applying them.
According to news agency Reuters, an EU legal advisor has recommended the EU Court of Justice in Luxembourg should cancel financial sanctions against a Saudi businessman and a Swedish-based money transfer business in two separate cases.
The agency quoted Cameron Doley, a British lawyer representing Saudi businessman Yassin Kadi as saying that his client had never received a clear statement of the allegations against him. Kadi had filed his case in the EU because the UN had no equivalent tribunal to which he could appeal.
"What this gives us, we hope, is a statement by one of the most prominent and respected courts in the world that this system is an unjustified infringement of the fundamental human rights of those persons who are listed," Doley told Reuters.