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Europe lawmakers call for EU terror list reforms to protect rights
Andrew Gilmore at 6:11 PM ET
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
[JURIST] Members of the European Parliament's Civil Liberties Committee [official website]
have criticized the European Union's terrorism watch list [text, PDF] as unfair and opaque,
saying that the process for adding names to the list should be changed, according to
Wednesday media reports. The comments came during a debate on a November 2007
report [text; JURIST report] by Rapporteur Dick Marty [personal website; JURIST news
archive] that found that the list violates basic human rights by not informing individuals
or groups when they've been added to the blacklist or giving them an opportunity to
respond to allegations against them. EUobserver has more.
In July 2007, the European Court of First Instance overturned [JURIST report] an EU
decision [Council Decision 2006/379/EC text, PDF] to freeze the assets of Communist
Party of the Philippines (CPP) chairman Jose Maria Sison [MIPT profile; judgment] and
the Hamas-affiliated al-Aqsa Foundation [judgment], both on the EU terrorism watch
list, finding that the Council did not give its reasons or provide an opportunity for the
plaintiffs to challenge the legal basis for their inclusion. In December 2006, the European
Court of First Instance similarly annuled an asset freeze [JURIST report] against the
People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) [organization website, in Farsi]. That
judgment prompted the Council of the European Union to revise [press release, PDF;
JURIST report] the procedures used in establishing and maintaining the EU's terror list.
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