Home    About    News & Statements     Reports    Congress Documents    Contact    Resources

The War on Terror in Europe
is a deliberate strategy to criminalize

every resistance against capitalism

 

 Raf Jespers

Lawyer, Progress Lawyers Network, Belgium

Europe does not go against the “war on terror” of Bush.  The attacks in New York, London and Madrid were the signal for Europe  to curtail without any scruple, the fundamental rights of its citizens. Under the banner of “the war on terror,” Europe has taken measures  which  up to a certain point, can be compared to the fascization of Europe in the ’30’s under  Hitler and Mussolini.

Terrorism has to be combated; innocent citizens have to be protected.

There is no question that a state should arm itself against terror deeds like those from Al-Qaeda. These blind extreme right and fascist terrorist actions do not deserve our understanding. The victims of these actions are the innocent persons in the streets of New York, London and Madrid.  So too are the Iraqi people, who are victims of the unlawful occupation in Iraq by the US and Great Britain.   This state terrorism also does not deserve any understanding. These two forms of terrorism are each other’s breeding ground. Without Al Qaeda  Bush would have had a more difficult time invading Iraq and taking drastic  measures against the fundamental rights such as in the Patriot Act. The invasion  of Iraq and the terror of the United States against the people became the pretext for all sorts of fundamentalists to meddle  in the Iraqi quagmire.

Power lines from the European anti-terror policies

The European Union (EU) is currently composed of 25 countries. The policy of the EU rests on three pillars: the economy, foreign affairs and justice/interior affairs. The EU policies against terrorism are defined by the Ministers of Justice and  Interior Affairs.  In reality,  the police, security, information and the Public Prosecutor of the EU, in secret consultations, write the texts which the Ministers later approve.

1. Exceptional legislation and the EU-list of “terrorists”

On 19 September 2001, barely 8 days after 9/11, the EU came up with a framework decision  against terrorism and a framework decision  for a European  warrant of arrest.

Because of the framework decision against terrorism,  all   EU countries were obliged to draw up  anti-terror legislation in their own penal codes. This happened in most of the countries. For example, Belgium and The Netherlands did this in 2004. This new legislation  means a historical intervention in criminal legislation:   for the first time in  history,   a very broadly defined and general political crime is added to the penal code, with heavy punishment and with punishment  for mere membership (also when the person has done nothing wrong) .

The definition of a terrorist crime is clearly a political crime.  What is defined as a terrorist purpose:  dislocating or destroying the political, constitutional economic or social basic structures, forcing a government to abstain from an action; and inflicting grave fear on the population of a country.

These are pre-eminently political intentions.

Anyone,  like the European dockworkers who want to compel  the European Commission to withdraw its directive to liberalize the hiring of dockworkers, falls under this definition.   Those who carry out anti-globalization activities against capitalism and who want  another society, also fall under this category.  So, this goes much further than combating Al Quaeda, and makes clear that Al Quaeda, in fact is a pretext to go after anyone who opposes in a radical way.

That this is the real strategy behind the EU anti-terror policy is confirmed by the so-called list of terrorist organizations and individuals.  This list has been drawn up by the EU without any defense by the concerned and without any right to defend himself.  As a consequence, anyone on the list is deprived of all financial means to undertake political actions,  and that the branding with the label “terrorist”   scares anyone who wants to be in solidarity with the person or organization. The criminalizing effect is therefore very grave.  That the EU is not only after the Al Qaeda is evident because there are also liberation movements which for decades have been struggling against tyranny, oppression or occupation.  Movements like the NPA (New Peoples’ Army) in the Philippines, (and the adviser of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, Professor Jose Maria Sison), PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) or the Iranian Mujaheddin are on the list.  The struggles of these organizations are legitimate under international law, but this right to (armed) resistance is now downgraded by the EU to a criminal act.

 2. From Terrorism to Extremism and Radicalism

The “war against terror” is  a conscious strategy  of the EU (and the United States) against every resistance directed at neo-liberal capitalism is. This is further made evident from the fact that since 2004, in one breath with terrorism, “extremism and radicalism” are put in the same category with terrorism.  Naturally, the excessive profits of the multinationals in, for example the bank or petroleum sector , are not meant here.  The struggle against extremism is being peddled as a struggle against the fundamentalist and radical tendencies in the Muslim world and especially among Muslim migrants in Europe.  But this flag does not cover the entire cargo.   Under extremism is envisioned  all individuals and organizations who in one way or another question the existing society, even environmental activists like Greenpeace.  A striking example of this  is the secret list of the police service in Antwerp (a port city in Belgium with 420,000 residents) which was exposed in 2005.  In the list of “terrorist and extremist” organizations of the citiy were more than 200 names of persons and organizations,    99% of whom undertake legal and open social and political activities.  These were migrant organizations, printing presses, humanitarian organizations,   protectors of animal rights, and progressive lawyers. In this way, under the cover of the fight against terrorism, the most flagrant violations of the basic rights  become “normal” practice. The existence of such a list means that persons and organizations will be followed, their privacy violated, their right to free organization and freedom of speech curtailed.  In this way, the understanding of terrorism is expanded to all forms of protest and resistance in the political, trade union and social fields.

3. Fundamental Rights Under Pressure

The “war on terror” of the EU infringes on other fields.  The framework decision on the European extradition order has as consequence  that within the EU, extradition also of those politically suspected or convicted happens almost automatically.  A country used to be able to  refuse the extradition of the person in question if he  was a citizen of the country, if he was a political refugee, if it was a political crime, or if there was threat that the person would be persecuted because of his religion, nationality or political beliefs.  All of these fundamental guarantees, which were achievements in international law in the 19th century, are, with one blow, abolished.

Another phenomenon is that the exception laws like the anti terror laws lead  to exceptional procedures and to strategies to avoid  guarantees of due process. In this way the classic principles of criminal law are eroded.  More and more, there is work on secret documents which the defense has no right to see. Special judges, special solicitors and even  appointed lawyers (so that the free choice of a lawyer disappears) are being implemented.

A shift has been established from the repression through criminal law to the repression via administrative law, where even less guarantees exist for the defense than in criminal law.  A typical but very terrible example is the “control orders” in the UK.  With one control order, a person can be subjected for months to all sorts of control regulations (for example, house arrest, forbidden to exchange letters, telephone and visits from friends) can happen through a decision of the minister of internal affairs on the basis of a secret dossier without any full-fledged judicial review.

This example illustrates  a more general tendency in the EU: the increasingly bigger hold of the executive authority (to the detriment of the legislative and judicial authority power).  The executive authority, (EU   Council of Ministers, EU commission, national governments, police, info and security services, solicitors) determine more and more which laws will be passed (they dictate these to the parliaments of the different EU countries and to the European Parliament) and they decide more and more on the practice of the repression.  The control orders but also the EU list of so-called terrorists are the most typical examples of this.  It is very important that in most of the EU countries, during the last few years, laws have been made allowing the police, secret and info services of the country entrance to use extraordinary investigation methods.  These extraordinary investigation methods (tapping, infiltration, surveillance) are almost without judicial controls and so broad that every individual that is under suspicion to have the intention to commit a crime, can be the subject of this.

4. What is Still in the EU Pipeline?

The EU  wants to  sharpen the repression in two areas. First, they want  the anti terror laws in EU countries to be even more broad so that the “apology” (the justification) of a terrorist act,  will be punishable.  This is a very dangerous tendency because this can lead to suppression of press freedom. Which journalist will now dare give news about, for example, liberation movements in the Third World if he himself will risk being accused of being a terrorist?

Secondly, the EU wants that the information that security  services collect by using secret investigation procedures, can be used in criminal cases.  The problem here is that this secret information, even during the court hearing, in large measure, must remain secret, which, naturally, leads to the giving of secret criminal dossiers and to special judges and specified lawyers who  must guarantee this secrecy.

Increasing Resistance

There is a growing resistance in the EU against this “war on terror” which has degenerated into a war against fundamental rights and especially to the criminalizing of every political and social movement that dares to questions the exploitation of capital with the scandalous profits and enrichment of a fraction of the population.

Jo Stevens, Chairperson of the Orde van Vlaamse Balies, (Order of Flemish Associations), and which represents more than 8000 lawyers in Belgium, expressed it in his New Year speech as follows: “Because a gentleman in America has declared the war on terror, we have become lawyers in the time of war.  The rights and freedom that Europe through the centuries, centimeter by centimeter has fought for, are now being reversed with many meters.  The fundamentalists of prevention and repression threaten our rule of law more than the religious fundamentalists.”

This standpoint I can adopt wholeheartedly.  It is also a call to the progressive lawyers in Europe and elsewhere, together with the broad social and trade union movement to wholeheartedly defend the fundamental rights, especially the right  to social improvement. #