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Take fight against terror to world stage: Pratibha

J. Venkatesan

Collectively defeat it, don’t deflect responsibility on to non-state actors

— Photo: S. Subramanium

President Pratibha Patil with Chief Justice of India Justice K. G. Balakrishnan, Union Minister for Law and Justice Veerappa Moily and All India Senior Advocates Association president Ram Jethmalani at the International Conference of Jurists in New Delhi on Saturday.

New Delhi: Describing terrorism as a global phenomenon, President Pratibha Patil on Saturday said, “Global problems call for global response.”

Ms. Patil said: “India has been a frequent victim of terrorism for over two decades. Besides inflicting large-scale physical casualties, terrorism poses a grave challenge to the essential elements of civil society like peace, democracy, individual liberty and freedom of thought and expression.”

The President was inaugurating a two-day international conference of jurists on international terrorism at the Vigyan Bhavan here.

Terrorists must not win

“In conjointly fighting terrorism, we ought to make it loud and clear that no idea, no cause whatsoever, can justify terrorism. Terrorists belong to no religion for they are not apostles of peace but messengers of death and destruction. We have to be overwhelmingly careful that terrorists do not succeed in their evil designs of sowing seeds of misunderstanding and causing fractures between cultures in the international community.”

The President said:

“Global problems call for global response. Terrorism is a perverse global phenomenon and the struggle against it must be carried to the world stage. Countries must individually own up responsibilities as must the international community, in collectively defeating terrorism and not deflect responsibility on to non-state actors. The responsibility to deal with them lies with the state from which they operate as it is the sanctuary, support and finances that they receive which sustain their heinous and perverse acts.”

She stressed the importance of intelligence gathering. “Surveillance systems have to be beefed up and coordination of issues at the functional level between various agencies within each country and at the inter-governmental level needs to be squarely addressed.”The international community must ensure that there was an effective legal framework for prevention and elimination of terrorism and to bring to justice the sponsors, abettors and perpetrators of terrorism.

“Some other issues which merit special focus would be the financing of terrorists, money laundering and regulation of charities, besides printing and circulation of fake currencies. There is a growing nexus between narcotics, drug trafficking, gunrunning and terrorism. Terrorists utilise sophisticated communication technologies and indulge in cyber terrorism. The related laws need to be strengthened.”

Sea piracy

The rise in the incidents of sea piracy disrupting mercantile shipping and their possible linkages with terror operatives needed to be factored in while looking at port security laws and maritime conventions, the President said.

Ms. Patil presented the International Jurists Awards 2009 to Justice Chan Sek Keong, Chief Justice of Singapore; Justice Awn S. Al-Khasawneh of the International Court of Justice; Sir Gavin Lightman, former High Court judge (Chancery Division), United Kingdom; Prof. C. Donald Johnson, Director of the Georgia School of Law, U.S.; Fatou Bensouda, head of the Prosecution Division, International Criminal Court; and the Society of the Inner Temple, London.

She presented National Law Day Awards 2009 to Haryana Chief Minister Bhoopinder Singh Hooda; Justice Arijit Pasayat, Chairman, Competition Appellate Tribunal; Solicitor-General Gopal Subramaniam; senior advocate K.V. Viswanathan and four others.

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