Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms While Countering Terrorism

Following the introduction, section II of the report provides a summary of the activities of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism from 1 January to 31 July 2009, including an official visit of the Special Rapporteur to Egypt in April 2009.

Consistent with the mandate of the Special Rapporteur as defined by the Human Rights Council, section III offers an analysis of counter-terrorism measures from a gender perspective. This report expands upon earlier reports of the Special Rapporteur to provide a comprehensive overview of the frequency and nature of gender-based human rights abuses in counter-terrorism measures and to explore the complex relationship between gender equality and countering terrorism. While many of the measures discussed in the report relate to the human rights of women, gender is not synonymous with women, and, instead, encompasses the social constructions that underlie how women's and men's roles, functions and responsibilities, including in relation to sexual orientation and gender identity, are understood. The report therefore discusses, besides the human rights of women, the gendered impact of counter-terrorism measures on men and persons of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities, and addresses how gender intersects with other prohibited grounds of discrimination, such as race and religion.

The report identifies the ways in which those subject to gender-based abuse are often caught between targeting by terrorist groups and the State's counter-terrorism measures that may fail to prevent, investigate, prosecute or punish these acts and perpetrate new human rights violations with impunity. These violations are amplified through war rhetoric and increased militarization in countering terrorism, both of which marginalize those who challenge or fall outside the boundaries of predetermined gender roles and involve situations of armed conflict and humanitarian crisis in which gender-based violence and gendered economic, social and cultural rights violations abound.

The report also addresses the ways in which overly broad counter-terrorism measures have unduly penalized individuals on the basis of gender, including, for example, the activities of women's human rights defenders. Counter-terrorism measures have also had other significant gendered collateral effects that are often neither acknowledged nor compensated. This includes, for example, significant adverse impacts on female family members of those subject to disappearances and extraordinary rendition, and the use of collective sanctions against female relatives of suspected terrorists by which women not suspected of terrorism-related offences are unlawfully detained and ill-treated to either gain information about male family members or to compel male terrorism suspects to provide information or confessions.

The report further discusses the relationship between promoting gender equality and countering terrorism, noting that while Governments are required to ensure the right to gender equality and non-discrimination as ends in themselves, a gender perspective is also integral to combating the conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism as identified in the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy adopted by the General Assembly in its resolution 60/288. The report then draws attention to the fact that contrary to these international human rights obligations to ensure equality, some Governments have used the human rights of women and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex individuals as a bartering tool to appease terrorist or extremist groups in ways that have furthered unequal gender relations and subjected such persons to increased violence.

Building on previous observations of the Special Rapporteur concerning the use of profiling in counter-terrorism measures, the report also identifies the ways in which counter-terrorism measures use gender stereotypes as a proxy for profiling on the basis of race, national or ethnic origin or religion, marginalizing individuals from targeted communities and subjecting them to greater discrimination and harassment by both private and public actors. Additionally, the report outlines the significant gender-based economic, social and cultural rights violations resulting from targeted sanctions and control orders, as well as the ways in which restrictive terrorism financing laws undermine the ability of charities to provide relief for gender-based violations, particularly those that occur in situations of humanitarian crisis.

The report next draws attention to the use of gender-specific forms of interrogation techniques in the name of countering terrorism, including sexual violence and other techniques aimed at emasculating male detainees. Turning to women's role in both terrorism and counter-terrorism measures, the report notes that, while women are victims of terrorism and counter-terrorism measures, they may also be volitional actors and should be considered as key stakeholders in counterterrorism measures. The report also discusses the specific ways in which restrictive immigration controls and asylum procedures disproportionately affect women and transgender asylum-seekers, refugees and immigrants, noting particularly that the identification of a link between anti-trafficking and counter-terrorism measures has been to the detriment of the human rights of trafficked persons, including women.

The conclusions and recommendations of the report are contained in section IV, which includes several recommendations addressed to States and specific recommendations addressed to various organs and bodies of the United Nations.