English

TAHR event

What constitutes terrorism? Is “war on terror” a war between nation-states or laws that define criminal acts? Post-911 anti-terrorism legislation advocated by the United States to the rest of the world promises better national security but posts challenge to human rights protection. Is national security opposing human rights protection or safeguarding it?

On 10 November 2006, an important forum on “Homeland Security and Human Rights Protection” took place in Taipei. It was organized by Taiwan Association for Human Rights (TAHR台灣人權促進會) with commission from Counter Terror Control Office, Executive Yuan (行政院反恐怖行動管控辦公室). This public forum aimed to facilitate much needed discussion on aforementioned questions and critical examination on Taiwan’s newly drafted anti-terror bill, the Anti-Terror Activities Act (反恐行動法草案), submitted by the Executive Yuan to the Legislative Yuan for deliberation and approval. The forum consisted four panels covering topics on current state of international anti-terrorism efforts, human rights and the impact of “war on terror,” the role of international organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and nation-states, as well as the role of Taiwan in anti-terror efforts and the draft anti-terror bill. Participants included a range of professions: lawyer, legal scholar, law enforcement professional, governmental official, NGO representative, student, and international speakers from Forum-Asia (Bangkok, Thailand) and Asian Law Center (Melbourne, Australia).

TAHR Executive Council Members have raised critical points on current trend of anti-terror legislation. One of the major emphases was on the need to clarify definition of terrorism and “war on terror”. Prof. Fort Fu-te Liao’s (廖福特) comparative study clearly demonstrated that anti-terrorism effort is different from declaring war between nation-states. In this case, unlike war-time, human rights standards should be fully respected and not compromised. He further pointed out that both domestic and international laws defined terrorism as crime, however there is still no consensus on what defines terrorism. Definition of crime is the basic principle for criminal punishment; the lack of it would create a legal vacuum that threaten human rights protection or lead to scenarios such as one country’s terrorist is another’s liberty fighter.

Regarding Taiwan, while some stated that the country had no direct experience with terrorism, Prof. Chris Huang (黃居正) and Prof. Chia-fan Lin (林佳範) reminded us about Taiwan’s history of martial law and the ongoing military threat by neighboring country China mounting over eight-hundred missiles directing at it right now. Therefore, it would be more important for Taiwan to address the immediate treats than the distanced one, suggested Ed Legaspi from Forum-Asia. He further recommended that Taiwan should have more independent policy towards homeland security and anti-terror activities and avoid overt influence by the U.S. interests, which might actually attract terrorist acts. Participant Bo Tedards (Taiwan Democracy Foundation) further related a critique by the Taipei Bar Association on Taiwan’s draft anti-terror bill that introduced a new group of crimes carrying the death penalty, which was a direct step backward on human rights protection. In addition, the drafting process lacked thorough evaluation and debate on each article, which resulting in unclear language and vague definition of crimes and scope of law enforcement. The content of the draft bill also violated Taiwan’s Constitution, added TAHR Chairperson Hao-Jen Wu (吳豪人). There was practically no changes made from the 1st draft bill (2002) to the latest one (2006). Atty. Neri Colmenares (Asian Law Center) said that Taiwan could sufficiently utilize its existing laws to handle crimes committed by terrorists and there is really no need to have a separate law on anti-terror activities. He further recommended a building of regional alliance to monitor anti-terrorism law by nation-states in the Asia region, based on shared similarity of the impact caused by anti-terror law, which, in his opinion, will destabilize regional security.


TAHR Contact Person:
Rebecca C. Fan tahr@seed.net.tw / www.tahr.org.tw