Read the 102nd issue of ICJ’s monthly newsletter on proposed and actual changes in counter-terrorism laws, policies and practices and their impact on human rights at the national, regional and international levels.
The E-Bulletin on Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights provides hyperlinks to full texts of reports, statements, laws, court judgments and legal analysis. It aims at fostering an informed debate on the implications of counter-terrorism measures for the promotion and protection of human rights.
AFRICA & MIDDLE EAST
Egypt: UN experts call on Government to end crackdown on human rights defenders
Egypt: Artists detained on terrorism charges for satirical video clip
Egypt: Scores detained and sentenced to prison terms for peaceful protests
Egypt: ‘Foreign funding case’ revived
Iran: Parliament passes Bill ordering Government to seek damages against USA
Nigeria: Amnesty International documents inhumane conditions in military detention
Somalia: Intelligence agency using former child soldiers as informants
Uganda: Kampala bombers convicted
AMERICAS
USA: Army officer challenges lawfulness of war against ISIS
USA: Debate on Section 702 reform kicks off
USA: Former Senator Graham calls for release of classified pages from 9/11 report
USA: Third appeal heard in Abu Ghraib torture case
USA: Court denies ACLU’s appeal regarding release full ‘Torture Report’
USA: The Intercept begins publishing NSA newsletters from Snowden archive
USA: Senate passes Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act
USA: National Defense Authorization Act allows Guantanamo detainees to plead guilty to criminal charges in civilian court through video-conferencing
USA: Periodic Review Board clears Obaidullah for release
USA: NSA whistle-blower protection criticized by former Pentagon assistant inspector general responsible for it
USA: Defence team Khalid Sheikh Mohammed call on judge and prosecution to relieve themselves of their duty after destruction of evidence
Canada: Designation Jaballah as terrorist under national security certificate unreasonable, finds Court
EUROPE & COMMONWEALTH OF INDEPENDENT STATES
UK: Parliamentary joint committee publishes report of inquiry into use of drones
UK: Supreme Court rejects Iraqi civilian claims of abuse by British military personnel
UK: Investigatory Powers Tribunal rules on extraterritoriality in surveillance context
UK: Government introduces Bill on counter-extremism
France: New counter-terrorism measures approved
France: State of emergency extended
Netherlands: Law allows stripping nationality of dual citizens without court conviction
Turkey: Erdogan refuses to change counter-terrorism law
Turkey: Cumhuriyet journalists sentenced to five years
UNITED NATIONS & REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
UN: Committee Against Torture reviews Turkey
UN: UNICRI study on children and counter-terrorism
Council of Europe: Secretary General Jagland expresses concern over Turkey’s counter-terrorism policies
E-BULLETIN no. 102
AFRICA & MIDDLE EAST
Egypt: UN experts call on Government to end crackdown on human rights defenders
On 9 May, three UN human rights experts (the Special Rapporteurs on the situation of human rights defenders; on freedom of opinion and expression; and on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association) urged the Egyptian Government to stop its oppressive response towards human rights advocates, reporting a crackdown on protesters, journalists, lawyers and human rights defenders in recent years by conducting mass arrests, using aggressive force and invading people’s privacy. The experts also expressed concern over security provisions and counter-terrorism legislation that impedes fundamental rights, which undermine “not only public debate and fundamental rights, but security and long-term stability”.
Egypt: Artists detained on terrorism charges for satirical video clip
On 2 May, an Egyptian troupe called ‘Street Children’ released a satirical music video, following which they were detained and are now being investigated for allegedly inciting protests and spreading “terrorist [ideas] that insult the president”. The troupe has been subjected to security restrictions at many of their shows in the past, but the apparent reason for their current detention are two satirical video clips criticizing President al-Sisi. If found guilty, each charge of “insulting the president of the republic and institutions of the state” carries a sentence of three to five years in prison.
Egypt: Scores detained and sentenced to prison terms for peaceful protests
Since the beginning of May, Egyptian courts have sentenced more than 150 people to prison terms for participating in peaceful protests or spreading false information, Human Rights Watch reported on 25 May. All of the defendants were apprehended in the days leading up to and during the dispersal of mostly peaceful protests on 15 and 25 April over the Government decision to cede two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia. Most were sentenced under Law 107 of 2013, which prohibits peaceful protests without approval from the Interior Ministry. Human Rights Watch reports the judges appeared to rely entirely on police arrest reports and security investigation notes. Lawyers told Human Rights Watch that two of the cases were the first they had heard of taking place in a terrorism court for minor offences. Sameh Samer, a lawyer with the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights, said there appeared to be no basis for referring some protesters to a terrorism court and others to a regular court. At least 86 others are awaiting decisions in three other on-going trials.
HRW Statement
Bar Human Rights Committee of England & Wales Statement
Blog Post
Egypt: ‘Foreign funding case’ revived
On 23 May, the Cairo Criminal Court postponed for the fourth time the delivery of its ruling on a lawsuit to freeze the assets of lawyer Gamal Eid, founder of the Arab Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) and investigative journalist Hossam Bahgat, founder of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR). The case, known as the No. 137 ‘foreign funding case’, began in 2011 when the Government raided the premises of 17 NGOs, confiscating funds and documents and detaining numerous staff, challenging their right to receive foreign funding. In 2013, 43 people were sentenced; directors and senior staff were convicted to five years’ imprisonment mostly in absentia, while Egyptian staff who remained in the country were given one-year suspended sentences. The court also ordered the closure of the organizations. In March, six days after the European Parliament (EP) issued a resolution condemning the human rights situation in Egypt, the authorities had reopened the 2011 investigation, again freezing assets and detaining NGO staff and issuing a gag order on the media. Subsequently, the European Union issued another statement noting “serious concern” about the reviving of the case and a UN spokesperson said that Secretary General Ban Ki-moon would follow closely the proceedings. Relevant to the case, on 20 April an administrative court ruled that NGOs have the right to receive foreign funding as long as the Ministry of Social Solidarity does not deem the NGO a harm to general peace and security or to have negatively affected public morality, which the judge characterized as an “assessing” rather than a “controlling” power.
NGO Statement
EP Resolution
EU Statement
UN Statement
Press Article
Press Article
Press Article
Iran: Parliament passes Bill ordering Government to seek damages against USA
On 15 May, the Iranian Parliament passed a Bill that forces the Administration to seek compensation from the United States for, among other things, its involvement in the 1953 coup that overthrew Mossadegh; support for Saddam Hussein in during the Iraq-Iran War; the deaths of 17,000 Iranian citizens at the hand of US-backed terror groups; spying against Iran; confiscating Iranian assets; and support for Israel. The Bill, which must still be signed into law by the Guardian Council overseeing the Parliament, is a response to the US Supreme Court’s ruling in Bank Markazi v Peterson last month, which ordered that the seizure of USD two billion of Iran’s frozen funds be paid to the survivors and relatives of the victims of a 1983 bombing in Beirut and a 1996 bombing in Khobar Towers, Saudi Arabia. Also on 15 May, the Supreme National Security Council voted to file a complaint with the International Court of Justice against the United States over last month’s US Supreme Court ruling.
Press Article
Press Article
Press Article
Nigeria: Amnesty International documents inhumane conditions in military detention
On 11 May, Amnesty International published a report revealing that 149 people, among whom eleven children under the age of six, have died this year following their detention in inhumane conditions in the military’s Giwa barracks detention centre. Amnesty International reports that overcrowding in Giwa barracks is in part the consequence of a system of arbitrary mass arrest and detention of persons suspected of involvement in terrorist or insurgent activities, with random profiling on the basis of sex and age rather than evidence of criminal wrongdoing, following the military’s regaining control of towns formerly controlled by Boko Haram.
Amnesty International reportSomalia: Intelligence agency using former child soldiers as informants
On 7 May, The Washington Post published a report documenting the use by Somalia’s National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA) of former child soldiers as informants. They were marched through neighbourhoods where al-Shabab insurgents were hiding and told to point out their former comrades. The faces of intelligence agents were covered but the boys, some as young as ten, were rarely concealed. Several of them were killed and one tried to hang himself while in custody. NISA director Gen. Adbirahman Turyare acknowledged in an interview that the agency continues to keep former child soldiers in detention for months at a time, in spite of a 2014 agreement to release children to UNICEF within 72 hours of their escaping al-Shabab or being apprehended. The NISA has been receiving substantial funding and training from the USA through the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for years, with a senior Somali official saying “there is nothing NISA does that the CIA does not know about”.
Washington Post report
Press Article
Uganda: Kampala bombers convicted
On 26 May, the Uganda High Court found seven people guilty of terrorism for their role in the 2010 bombing by al-Shabab that killed 76 people in Kampala. In the case, 13 men were tried on a range of charges including terrorism, murder and membership of a terrorist organization. Five were given life sentences and two received 50 years’ imprisonment; the prosecution had sought the death penalty. Their guilty verdicts are thought to be the first convictions of al-Shabab suspects outside of Somalia.
AMERICAS
USA: Army officer challenges lawfulness of war against ISIS
On 4 May, Capt. Nathan Michael Smith, a US Army intelligence officer stationed in Kuwait, filed a complaint in the DC District Court seeking a declaration that President Obama’s war against ISIS is illegal because Congress has not authorized it. The Obama Administration has argued that the President already has the authority to wage the conflict under the 2001 authorization to fight the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks (2001 AUMF) because the Islamic State used to be an al Qaeda affiliate during the Iraq war, and under the 2002 authorization for the invasion of Iraq (2002 Iraq AUMF). The complaint challenges this position, arguing that the President’s use of force exceeds his authority under Article II of the Constitution, the 2001 AUMF, the 2002 Iraq AUMF and the War Powers Resolution because the force constitutes “hostilities” for longer than sixty days without Congressional authorization. It also argues that the President had failed to comply with the ‘Take Care clause’ under Article II clause because the President did not publish a “sustained legal justification”.
Smith filing
Blog Post
Press Article
USA: Debate on Section 702 reform kicks off
On 10 May, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a public hearing on the re-authorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Amendments Act, which is due to expire under a sunset clause at the end of 2017. The Senate Committee’s public meeting follows an earlier closed hearing by its House counterpart in February. The hearing exposed differences between those who believe Section 702, which gives the National Security Agency broad authority to collect information, should be re-authorized in its current form and those who believe it should be narrowed. The former argued that placing additional limits to searching through data collected under Section 702 would make investigations “cumbersome and slow”, whereas the latter called for greater transparency and more restrictions, challenging among other things the practice that allows the Federal Bureau of Investigations to search part of the Section 702 database for evidence of purely domestic crimes without a warrant as a “backdoor search”.
Senate website
Press Article
Blog post
USA: Former Senator Graham calls for release of classified pages from 9/11 report
On 11 May, Bob Graham, who served as co-chair of the Joint Inquiry Into the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001, published an Op-Ed in the Washington Post calling for the release of 28 pages from the 2003 Final Joint Inquiry report that remain classified. Former Senator Graham said that the 28 pages constitute “the fruit of [a] probing” into “concerns about the possible involvement of foreign individuals and foreign sources of support for the hijackers”. Meanwhile, Commission member John Lehman, citing clear evidence, told The Guardian that “there was an awful lot of participation by Saudi individuals in supporting the hijackers, and some of those people worked in the Saudi government”.
Graham Op-Ed
The Guardian Article
Press Article
USA: Third appeal heard in Abu Ghraib torture case
On 12 May, the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit heard the third appeal in Al Shimari v CACI Premier Technology Inc., the one remaining lawsuit arising out of the torture of US detainees at Abu Ghraib. The case was first filed in June 2008 under the Alien Tort Statute. At the most recent appeal hearing, lawyers for the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) argued that the well-established torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and the private military contractor’s role therein are not questions best left to the political branches, as the District Court had held in June 2015. The facts of the case concern several CACI interrogators’ conspiring with US soldiers (who were later court martialed) in order to “soften” detainees for interrogations, which contributed to “sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses”, as determined by US military investigators. The appealed June judgment, however, dismissed the case, ruling that CACI’s responsibility for its role is a political question unreviewable by the court and that a “cloud of ambiguity” surrounds the definition of torture, in what CCR lawyers dubbed “essentially a return to the widely discredited Bush-era legal theories of Torture Memo author John Yoo”.
CCR Statement
CCR case website
Blog post
USA: Court denies ACLU’s appeal regarding release full ‘Torture Report’
On 13 May, the Court of Appeal for the DC Circuit denied the appeal by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in a dispute concerning its attempt to invoke the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to obtain a copy of the full “Torture Report”, the 6,000 page report by the bipartisan Senate Select Committee on Intelligence about the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) rendition, detention and interrogation programme. The denial of the appeal hinges on the court’s determination that the full report is a collection of Congressional communications and documents, rather than being in the possession of the CIA where they could be accessed via FOIA requests. Through a 2009 letter from the Senate Committee to the CIA, the finished report as well as all documents used to compile it became a Congressional “work product”, making it inaccessible by the general public.
USA: The Intercept begins publishing NSA newsletters from Snowden archive
On 16 May, The Intercept published a first batch of SIDtoday articles, using files provided by whistle-blower Edward Snowden. SIDtoday is the internal newsletter for the National Security Agency’s (NSA) Signals Intelligence Directorate, containing more than 4,500 stories in the first nine years of publication, which started after the US invasion of Iraq. This first release contains 166 documents, all from 2003. The Intercept will publish further instalments, up until the most recent issues in the archive from 2012. The documents cover a wide range of topics, from serious reports on surveillance programmes to trivial reports of analysts’ vacations. Among other things, the first issues of SIDtoday document how the Agency paved the way for the Iraq war with diplomatic intelligence, supported the targeting of specific persons in Iraq and continued servicing existing “customers” such as the Department of the Interior and the Department of Agriculture. The articles also show NSA personnel involvement in interrogations at Guantanamo, working alongside the military and Central Intelligence Agency.
The Intercept 1
The Intercept 2
The Intercept 3
The Intercept 4
USA: Senate passes Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act
On 17 May, the Senate passed the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), after significantly changing the version of the Bill voted out of the Senate Judiciary Committee in April. The new version of the Bill no longer amends the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) to allow personal jurisdiction against entities who aided and abetted acts of international terrorism; the scope of the amendment of the ATA that would repeal the prohibition on suits against a foreign State has been narrowed; and it includes a procedure whereby the US Government can seek to stay any case under JASTA indefinitely (which has to be approved by a judge).
Congress Website
Blog Post
Press Article
USA: National Defense Authorization Act allows Guantanamo detainees to plead guilty to criminal charges in civilian court through video-conferencing
On 18 May, the House of Representatives passed the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017, which among other things contains a measure that will allow detainees held at Guantanamo Bay to plead guilty to criminal charges in a civilian court through video-conferencing and that would also permit their transfer to other countries to serve their sentences. The legislation would largely extend an existing ban on bringing detainees to the United States. It now needs to be approved by the Senate and signed into law by the President.
Congress Website
Blog post
Blog post
Blog post
Press Article
USA: Periodic Review Board clears Obaidullah for release
On 20 May, the Pentagon announced that the Periodic Review Board cleared Guantanamo detainee Obaidullah for release after almost fifteen years of detention. Obaidullah was captured in November 2002 and charged with conspiracy and providing material support to terrorists in 2008, but those charges were dismissed by a military tribunal in 2011. It is not known when or to where he will be transferred. There are currently 80 detainees remaining at Guantanamo.
USA: NSA whistle-blower protection criticized by former Pentagon assistant inspector general responsible for it
On 22 May, The Guardian published an article by Mark Hertsgaard, adapted from his new book ‘Bravehearts: Whistle Blowing in the Age of Snowden’, which describes how former National Security Agency official Thomas Drake was punished for going through proper channels in an attempt to expose violations of civil liberties. As was known already, prosecutors filed ten felony charges against Drake for allegedly leaking information to a reporter but eventually settled for a misdemeanour guilty plea after professionally and financially ruining Drake in a prosecution the judge called “unconscionable”. Hertsgaard’s article reveals a new key player, John Crane, a former assistant inspector general at the Pentagon who was responsible for protecting whistle-blowers. Crane alleges that his former colleagues in the inspector general’s office “revealed Drake’s identity to the Justice Department; then they withheld (and perhaps destroyed) evidence after Drake was indicted; finally, they lied about all this to a federal judge”. Crane’s revelations about how the Pentagon’s system of whistle-blower protections effectively became a “trap” for those seeking to expose wrongdoing appear to vindicate the actions of Edward Snowden, in undermining those within the Administration who argue that there were established routes for him other than leaking to the media.
The Guardian 1
The Guardian 2
The Guardian 3
USA: Defence team Khalid Sheikh Mohammed call on judge and prosecution to relieve themselves of their duty after destruction of evidence
On 11 May, it was reported that the defence team of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged architect of the 9/11 terrorist attacks who faces the death penalty before a military commission at Guantanamo, have filed a motion calling for the judge and the entire prosecution to relieve themselves of their duties after suspicions arose that they secretly destroyed evidence. The defence counsel also believe that the entire case should be dismissed based on the alleged actions of the prosecution, which they say gives rise to “at least the appearance of collusion between the prosecution and the judge”. They were not permitted to say what the evidence was, but characterized it as “favourable” and “important or even critical” to an eventual trial. The issue traces back several years, when the question of the evidence’s fate first arose. In September 2012 Colonel Pohl, the judge overseeing the trial, had issued a public order requiring the government to “preserve any existing evidence of any overseas detention facility used to imprison any of the defendants or potential witnesses”. However, the defence received in February most recently a sealed order from Pohl outlining that the judge had sanctioned the destruction of the documents 20 months prior, reversing his earlier public order, which led them to file the motion at issue.
Press Article
Press Article
Press Article
Canada: Designation Jaballah as terrorist under national security certificate unreasonable, finds Court
On 24 May, a Federal Court judge ruled the Government’s designation of Mahmoud Jaballah as a threat to national security to be unreasonable, finding no credible evidence exists he was ever a member of a violent group, engaged in terrorist activities or posed a threat to Canada. The judgment also criticizes the Canadian Security Intelligence Service’s investigation. Jaballah, who came to Canada in 1996 and was initially granted refugee status, was first arrested in 1999 under a national security certificate based largely on secret evidence that he was not allowed to see. That certificate was quickly deemed unreasonable, but the Government issued a second one in 2001, which was upheld in 2003 after the Government argued it had new secret evidence. In 2007, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled the national certificate process to be unfair because of the secrecy and quashed the certificates, but gave the Government one year to rewrite the rules, leading to the issuance of a third certificate against Jaballah in 2008, which has now been found to be unreasonable.
Court Press Release
Press Article
Press Article
EUROPE & COMMONWEALTH OF INDEPENDENT STATES
UK: Parliamentary joint committee publishes report of inquiry into use of drones
On 10 May, the British Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights published the report of its inquiry into the use of drones for targeted killings. It provides a detailed analysis of the UK Government’s statements about its approach to individualized strikes and gives the Committee’s assessment of the legal regime that should apply in such cases. The Committee makes strong calls on the Government to clarify its confusing and often contradictory statements, and calls for independent scrutiny of drone targeted-killings. The Committee takes the view that human rights law provides the framework for the use of lethal force against terrorists outside armed conflict, however accepting that a targeted strike would be permitted where “there was a real and immediate threat to life by ISIL/Da’esh fighters and the use of force was proportionate to the threat of life posed by those fighters. Any assessment of the necessity and proportionality of the use of force will have to take account of the unprecedented nature and seriousness of the threat posed.”
Report
Blog post
Blog post
The Guardian Op-Ed
UK: Supreme Court rejects Iraqi civilian claims of abuse by British military personnel
On 12 May, the Supreme Court unanimously rejected claims by around 600 Iraqi civilians that they were extra-judicially detained and physically abused by British military personnel between 2003 and 2009. The judgment turns on the application of the limitation period, with the applicants arguing that the time period of three years under the Civil Code of Iraq had been suspended because Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) Order 17 made it impossible for them to sue the British Government in Iraq, as it provides that coalition forces are “immune from Iraqi legal process”. The Supreme Court noted that under the Foreign Limitation Periods Act 1984, English courts are required to apply the limitation rules of the lex causae to English proceedings, in this case the Iraqi law of limitation. In the process of transposition in order to apply the Iraqi law, the Supreme Court found that CPA Order 17 was not a rule of limitation but rather a fact, devoid of legal effect outside Iraq. Accordingly, the Court held that, concerning the impediment and impossibility affecting the bringing of legal proceedings, which would have suspended the period of limitations, CPA Order 17 was an irrelevant fact for proceedings in England because it had never impeded resort to English courts. Thus, the Court ruled that the applications for compensation, which were begun outside the standard period of limitations under Iraq law, were time-barred.
Judgment
Blog Post
Blog Post
Press Article
UK: Investigatory Powers Tribunal rules on extraterritoriality in surveillance context
On 17 May, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) ruled that persons not present within the UK are not within the jurisdiction of the UK in the sense of Article 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights and accordingly are unable to rely on any of the rights under that Convention in proceedings against the UK. The reasoning in the judgment, which was the first time a British court has expressly dealt with extraterritoriality in the surveillance context, draws heavily on an analogy with the Bankovic decision of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). Furthermore, applying the recent ECtHR Zakharov judgment, the IPT also found that all but six of the 600+ claimants lacked standing even under the very low threshold of showing that they are “potentially at risk” from surveillance measures.
UK: Government introduces Bill on counter-extremism
On 18 May, the UK Government, as part of the Queen’s Speech, announced a Counter-Extremism and Safeguarding Bill (for England and Wales), which would introduce a new civil order regime to restrict “extremist activity”. The Bill contains numerous new powers, including the ability to ban “extremist” organizations, gag individuals and empower local councils to close premises used to “promote hatred”. The Bill, however, contains no definition of the concept of “extremism”. A diverse alliance of 26 civil society organizations and prominent individuals, including the former police chief in charge of the Government’s anti-radicalisation programme ‘Prevent’, has spoken out against the Bill, expressing grave concern that the proposals will feed fear as well as “serve to alienate communities and undermine free speech, but there is scant evidence that they will tackle the terrorism we all want to confront”.
Queen’s Speech Background Note
Parliament Research Briefing
NGO Statement
Press Article
Press Article
Press Article
France: New counter-terrorism measures approved
On 25 May, the Senate approved the law reinforcing the fight against organized crime, terrorism and their financing and improving the effectiveness and the guarantees of the criminal procedure, following earlier approval by the National Assembly of the compromise text to come out of a joint committee. The law extends police and judicial powers, and includes measures that are reminiscent of those taken under the state of emergency. Among other things, the law gives the Minister of the Interior the power to assign residency for a month to persons returning from a theatre of war where terrorist groups are active, even when there is no indication of criminal behaviour. Further, it also allows the police to detain a person without access to a lawyer for up to four hours to check identification if they suspect that person has connections to terrorism, and it gives police officers more leeway to use deadly force. Under the law, police and prosecutors now have access to electronic surveillance technology that previously was only available to the intelligence agencies, and prosecutors were given some new powers similar to those of investigative judges, including the ability to tap phones and use hidden cameras. Further, prison authorities are given greater authority to search inmates and they are allowed to put microphones and cameras in cells without prosecutorial authorization. The new law also makes it illegal to regularly consult websites that promote terrorism, except for legitimate academic or journalistic activities, with a maximum sentence of two years in prison and a fine of 30,000 Euro.
Senate Website
Senate Press Release
Senate Report
Press Article (FR)
Press Article (FR)
Press Article
France: State of emergency extended
On 19 May, the French Assembly approved a third extension, by two months, of the state of emergency that was initially declared in the aftermath of the 13 November terrorist attacks. The extension will cover the Euro 2015 football tournament and the Tour de France cycling race. The Senate had already approved the extension on 10 May. A parliamentary report published on 17 May had noted that several measures under the state of emergency that were useful in the immediate aftermath of the attacks “no longer presented the same interest today”. The new extension no longer authorizes authorities to put people under house arrest and to carry out police raids without the prior authorization of a judge.
Assembly Website (FR)
Press Article
Netherlands: Law allows stripping nationality of dual citizens without court conviction
On 24 May, the Netherlands passed a law that allow authorities to strip dual citizens of Dutch nationality, if they have joined a terror group or fought abroad with groups such as ISIS. The law, which was passed citing the “immediate threat” posed to national security, permits the revocation of citizenship without a court conviction. Persons concerned have four weeks to appeal such decisions.
Government Website (NL)
Press Article
Press Article (NL)
Press Article (NL)
Turkey: Erdogan refuses to change counter-terrorism law
On 6 May, Turkish President Erdogan announced that he does not plan to change the country’s anti-terrorism law, a requirement of a deal struck between Turkey and the EU in which the former agreed to stem migrant flows, in particular of Syrian refugees, in return for political and financial incentives to Ankara. One of those incentives was visa-free travel for Turkish citizens to the Schengen zone, but for the European Parliament to endorse the visa waiver the country must, among other things, change its anti-terrorism law, including narrowing the definition of “terrorist” and “terrorist act”.
Blog Post
Press Article
Press Article
Press Article
Press Article
Turkey: Cumhuriyet journalists sentenced to five years
On 6 May, Istanbul’s 14th Court of Serious Crimes sentenced Cumhuriyet journalists Can Dündar and Erdem Gül to five years’ imprisonment for “leaking state secrets”, while acquitting them of “coup attempt” charges. The charges related to stories published in early 2014 about Turkish intelligence service trucks bound for Syria with hidden weapons. Dündar just hours before the judgment escaped unharmed from an armed attack in front of the courthouse by an assailant who fired two shorts at him while saying “you are a traitor”. Both journalists were arrested in November 2015 and released following a Constitutional Court decision on 26 February; they will not now immediately go back to prison.
Turkey: Journalists detained for tweets
On 30 April, news editor Hamza Aktan was detained after a raid on his house by counter-terrorism police. Following interrogation, he was referred to the prosecutor’s office at Bakirkoy Court. Media reports say his lawyers claim that Aktan was arrested due to tweets in which he shared media reports about civilians killed during the on-going conflict with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). On 23 April, Dutch-Turkish journalist Ebru Umar was briefly arrested for tweeting comments critical of President Erdogan. She was released a day later after being questioned for 16 hours, but is not allowed to leave the country and must report to police twice weekly.
Press Article
UNITED NATIONS & REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
UN: Committee Against Torture reviews Turkey
On 13 May, the UN Committee Against Torture published its Concluding Observations on the fourth periodic report of Turkey. The Committee expressed serious concern about numerous credible reports of law enforcement officials engaging in torture and ill-treatment of detainees while responding to security threats in the south-east of the country, and about the reported impunity enjoyed by the perpetrators of such acts. The Committee further expressed concern at reports it has received of the commission of extrajudicial killings of civilians by Turkish authorities in the course of carrying out counter-terrorism operations in the south-east.
Concluding ObservationsUN: UNICRI study on children and counter-terrorism
UNICRI, the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute, has published a new study on ‘Children and Counter-terrorism’. It aims to shed light on the particular vulnerability of children and juveniles in the context of counter-terrorism, examining the position of children in international law as perpetrators and victims of terrorism. It also seeks to analyse the extent to which counter-terrorism laws and practices in England and Germany comply with international juvenile justice and child protection standards, exploring radicalization, de-radicalization and counter-radicalization.
UNICRI StudyCouncil of Europe: Secretary General Jagland expresses concern over Turkey’s counter-terrorism policies
On 21 May, speaking with Bulgarian media on the occasion of Bulgaria’s rotating chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers, Secretary General Jagland expressed concern over the way Turkey is “applying the terror legislation and how this affects freedom of expression and the security of journalists”, adding that “we are raising this with the Turkish authorities”.
Press Article
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