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Despite the state emergency in France many decided to join the Climate March and challenge the interdiction to demonstrate. Demotix/ Marie Boyard. All rights reserved. Not since the Algerian
War more than a half-century ago has France imposed such sweeping emergency
powers. In little more than two weeks since the Paris attacks, French police
have carried out well over 1,000 raids nationwide, busting open doors, hauling
away scores of suspects without warrants—and even using their new counterterror
laws to clamp down on climate-change protesters. In the United Kingdom,
where Parliament may vote this week on starting airstrikes against the armed
extremist group Islamic State (also known as ISIS) in Syria, hate crimes against Muslims are on the rise.
In Belgium, where the
Paris attacks were hatched, the country remains on alert, and the prime minster
has proposed measures such as electronically tagging
youths the authorities fear will travel to Syria, and telling imams what to
preach.
In the United Kingdom,
where Parliament may vote this week on starting airstrikes against the armed
extremist group Islamic State (also known as ISIS) in Syria, hate crimes against Muslims are on the rise. In
the United States, calls are mounting to ban data encryption and bar Syrian refugees. Canada’s new Liberal
government will let in some Syrians, but only if they aren’t fighting-age heterosexual
males.
Responses to the Paris
attacks, whether based on the rule of law or sinking to the lowest common
denominator—such as Donald Trump’s call to reinstate the form of torture known
as waterboarding—will be test cases for leading
democracies.
The urge to respond
assertively is natural; governments are responsible for keeping their people
safe. But while extra protective measures may well be needed, it’s critically important
not to let reactions cross over to the dark side as they did after the September 11
attacks.
Arbitrarily targeting
Muslims, disproportionately restricting freedom of movement, religion and
speech, and subverting the rule of law will only feed the ISIS recruitment
narrative. They also make it easier for other governments to justify abuses in
the name of security.
As they weigh reactions,
France, the United States and other democracies would do well to consider the
latest Global Terrorism Index, an annual report by the Institute of
Economics & Peace. The report defines terrorism as the
“threatened or actual use of illegal force and violence by a non-state actor to
attain a political, religious, economic or social goal through fear, coercion
or intimidation”.
The index shows that
despite a troubling global rise in terrorism in the past 15 years, attacks on
the west remain exceedingly rare. Indeed, it says that the 37 people killed in
terrorist attacks in 38 western countries last year only accounted for 0.1 percent
of the worldwide toll. Though the western toll will be higher this year, it is
likely to remain a tiny fraction of the total. Arbitrarily targeting
Muslims… will only feed the ISIS recruitment
narrative.
Worldwide, the toll from
all forms of murder is 13 times as high as from terrorism alone, and the
economic losses from violent crimes is 32 times greater, the report says. In
some democracies, like the UK, zero people were killed in terrorism attacks on
home soil last year (compare that to the 1,730 people killed annually on Britain’s roads).
The terrorism index also
notes that most of the attacks in the west in the past eight years were the
work of far-right fanatics, nationalists, supremacists and others with no link
to armed Islamist extremism. Nor was ISIS, which claimed responsibility for the
Paris attacks, the deadliest armed extremist group; that dubious distinction
went to its Nigeria-based affiliate Boko Haram.
Western governments should
also pay close attention to the report’s finding that the countries with the
highest rates of terrorist violence—including Syria, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan
and Afghanistan—are plagued by government abuses including corruption, summary
executions, political imprisonment, torture, and ethnic and religious
discrimination.
This suggests that one
effective way for western governments to keep their people safe is to press for
fundamental reforms in countries where armed extremists thrive, rather than
subverting democracy at home.
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