These laws therefore mix political actions with crime: In other words they make a criminal action out of a political action and strip it of its political character (depoliticize political activities).

They stigmatized a wide range of legitimate political activity as “terrorism”. This law created “terrorist suspects” by redefining terrorism in broader ways, blurring any distinction between anti-government protest and organized violence against civilians, by placing entire communities under suspicion of associating with such “terrorism” by waging psychological warfare through disinformation and mass media scares about “Al Qaeda cells”.

All these laws impose very heavy sentences, going in certain countries to the death penalty. They lead to a massive increase of political prisoners like in Turkey.

All these laws not only punish individuals for what they do, but introduce also the so-called association-indictable offense. This means that the mere membership in an organization that is considered terrorist, even the legal contribution to that organization without even being member, or the solidarity with such an organization also will be considered “terrorist”.

The idea of terrorism is extended to several forms of social fight and protest. Dissident political and trade union opinions become criminalized. An environment movement such as Greenpeace or animal rights activist is even prosecuted as terrorist in some countries.

These exceptional laws also lead to exceptional procedures in court, to special anti- terrorism courts, to courts established behind closed doors and lose in this way the public’s access, to strategies that avoid the normal guarantees in trials (e.g. secret proof, especially selected lawyers, prohibition among other things for lawyers to make certain information known to client or press), to special system and long periods of “incommunicado” of the suspect (e.g., proposed Philippine law: 15-day detention before appearance in front of a judge) something that opens the door for the application of torture during interrogations.

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 obligated to draw up anti-terror legislation in their own penal codes. This happened 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: disclosing 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 Qaeda, and makes clear that Al Qaeda, in fact is a pretext to go after anyone who opposes in a radical way.

3.Administrative repression replaces more and more repression by means of the criminal law. Lists of “terrorists”.

There is a tendency to politically repress more and more by means of the administrative process. The administration, the executive power and the government act in name of the courts. A number of guarantees, recognized in criminal law: right to due process, right to objection, right by a lawyer, right to examination of the file and the evidence disappear in that way. These administrative measures are based on unverifiable information of security services.

It is already this way in the United Kingdom with the so-called control orders. By means of these control orders the government can take very far-reaching measures (administrative detention, house judgment, prohibition for communication with third parties, only lawyers indicated by the state can act in the purely administrative procedure…) without the necessity to prove a violation on penal law.

The most far-reaching example is of course the U.S. prison of Guantanamo. One single command of the president of the U.S. and of the government of this country mean that about 400 prisoners are stuck in this prison, some for already five years, without any form of due process, of (being detained) without charge.

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 therefore not only on 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 chief political consultant of the panel of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines in peace talks with the Government of the Republic of the Philippines, Professor Jose Maria Sison) and the 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.

4.Complete control of the population and extension of the secret investigation methods of the police force – and security services.

In every country of the world, large-scale measures which allow the checking of the activities of the population are taken.

This happens by massive registering of data (data which by means of the internet, mail movement, telephone, databank – swift scandal-…are obtained). The U.S. obliges other countries to pass on details about all kinds of personal information (e.g. eating habits…) of plane passengers to the U.S. These massive fact files are digitally verified by means of code words. Thus, enormous analyses and lists are made about individuals and organizations, of which majority does nothing else but in a legitimate manner practice their civil liberties. These analyses are used to criminalize social protest. In that way the big brother society has become a fact.

This is done by giving to the judicial service and police force, but now also more and more to the information – and security services (of state, of the army) the possibility to use particular control methods without judicial or parliamentary control: infiltration, letter, telephone – and mail tap, observation, use of monitoring equipment, house seeking without democratic control and without opportunity of the touched person to resist.

There is a worldwide tendency to use these data collected by secret services, collected within the framework of the security policy of a state, also in criminal law. This breaks through the borders of the criminal law seeing that data from security investigations are not intended for criminal prosecution.

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