Strasbourg, 19/05/2015 (Agence Europe) - The Council of Europe's (COE) Committee of Ministers adopted the first raft of legally binding international standards, in Brussels on 19 May, which are intended to respond to the issue of “foreign terrorist fighters”. There are now nearly 5,000 European citizens who have left or are leaving to join the ranks of Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.
Laid out in an additional protocol to the COE's convention on the prevention of terrorism, which has so far been signed by 44 of the organisation's 47 member states, these standards will require countries to outlaw various actions including intentionally taking part in terrorist groups, receiving terrorism training or travelling abroad for the purpose of terrorism.
The protocol also provides for a round-the-clock network of national contact points to be set up in order to exchange information rapidly.
At the end of April, the plenary session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) spoke - at the request of the Committee of Ministers - about this draft protocol to the convention. Based on the report by British socialist, Lord John E. Tomlinson, the protocol's relevance was approved by the parliamentarians' vote after the terrorist attacks in Paris and Copenhagen. The parliamentarians nevertheless stated their concern at the text's possible negative impact on human rights -due to the fact that criminal acts arise mainly from the preparation of terrorist acts without a sufficiently direct link with the so-called criminal act being established. No clear and unambiguous intention of committing an infraction is required, Tomlinson's report points out, also underlining that abuses of prosecution are all the more possible as much will depend on how the parties apply the protocol.
This is therefore to be followed up, as is the establishment of the three-year action plan against violent extremism and radicalisation, which was also adopted by the Committee of Ministers on 19 May. Joined to a political statement, the action plan provides for a series of COE-led measures to help tackle radicalisation, including in schools, prisons and on the internet. (Véronique Leblanc)