engleski

Europe at a Crossroads - Countering Terrorism in the Surveillance Society

Recent terrorist attacks in Europe were used by the executive as a pretext for unprecedented restrictions of constitutional rights of citizens. Well established system of checks and balances was than radically redefined in favor of the executive branch. Abstention from constitutional protection took many faces. For instance, through administrative preventive detention persons under suspicion of terrorist activities have been deprived of their right to be imprisoned or taken to custody only upon decision by the impartial court. They were kept incommunicado and without right to hire a lawyer and to access to the court. Those who have been captured in the zones of active hostilities (in Afghanistan or Iraq) were considered as enemy combatants and therefore deprived of the rights that prisoners of war enjoy under the Geneva conventions of 1949 and Protocols thereto. Prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment that is considered as an absolute right under human rights conventions, was mitigated by the authorities through legal interpretations. For instance, to justify the practice of keeping imprisoned suspected terrorist sleepless for days, authorities denied criticism that it amounted to “sleep deprivation” but rather “modification of a sleep regime” that is not prohibited under international human rights law. Moreover, such extreme measures were justified on the grounds they were taken outside the boundaries of domestic jurisdiction and against foreigners who are not entitled to constitutional protection clauses. In addition to these measures taken against suspected terrorists who have been considered not only as perpetrators of criminal offence but as a genuine threat to national security, some of the counter-terrorist measures seriously affected ordinary citizens who had nothing to do with terrorism. These are the measures of mass surveillance and interception of telecommunications, email correspondence, social networks, measures of so called racial profiling etc.

terrorism, human rights, surveillance society

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