Civil liberties and anti terrorism measures essay

In recent years, the threat of terrorism has reached its peak. There is no place on the planet where people would not suffer from terrorist attacks. The United Nations Organization (UNO) has also experienced numerous human losses as a result of violent terrorist acts. The issue of terrorism is closely related to the issue of civil liberties. The ever-growing threat of terrorist attacks requires adequate anti-terrorism measures to be taken by the governments of all states. Without any doubt, terrorism has a direct impact on the human rights and civil liberties depriving people of an opportunity to use the rights for life, liberty and physical sanctity. Apart from human losses, terrorism can lead to the destabilization of the government and destroy the functioning of civil society posing a threat to the safety of the whole world and hindering its socio-economic development. All this negatively affects the effectiveness of methods used for human rights protection.

A right for safety represents one of the basic human rights, and protection of civil people is one of the obligations of every state’s government. Thus, there should be implemented proper anti-terrorism measures to protect the civil liberties of people and eliminate the threat of terrorist attacks. In such a way, the government should give people an opportunity to use civil liberties and protect the society from terrorism.

However, in recent years some of the states violated the basic human rights and civil liberties by implementing inappropriate anti-terrorism measures that were thought to be effective in combating terrorism. Some states used violent methods in their struggle against terrorism, which violated the civil liberties. This leads to an assumption that the issue of anti-terrorism measures taken by the governments of different states is rather controversial and should be investigated in detail in order to find the best possible solution to the existing problem.

In fact, some states often ignore the issue of civil liberties in their struggle against terrorism. They use torturing as a method of dealing with terrorists, which directly violates basic human rights. Such strict measures are thought to be effective in combating terrorism, although in reality these measures only aggravate the situation facilitating the growth of terrorism around the globe. Some of the states used to send the potential terrorists to other states that would most likely torture the convicts in order to get more information about the committed terrorist acts or the members of terrorist organizations. It also directly violates the civil liberties of people making the state of matters even worse. In such a way, anti-terrorism measures often cause violation of human rights making people actively oppose the government and consequently leading to social unrest.

On the other hand, anti-terrorism measures sometimes lead to positive outcomes in case real terrorists are captured and punished. In fact, all anti-terrorism measures pursue a noble goal of combating terrorism, although this goal is not always realized the way it should be. However, in most countries the resources that could be used for social programs are transferred to the security sector. This greatly affects economic, social and cultural rights of numerous people. The fact that anti-terrorism measures are put over human rights provokes social unrest as it violates basic human rights.

Furthermore, anti-terrorism measures are often counterproductive in terms of national and international efforts aimed at combating terrorism. The global war on terrorism should be based on respect for human rights and legitimacy. In order to achieve this, there should be developed special counterterrorism strategies that would help prevent terrorist acts without violating civil liberties. Those who are responsible for terrorist acts should be prosecuted. However, the protection of civil liberties should be placed over the equally vital issue of combating terrorism.