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How 9/11 has eroded our human rights

How have our attitudes to human rights changed since 9/11? What about our laws?

This content was published on September 7, 2021 minutes

Imogen Foulkes is joined by Fionnuala Ni Aolain, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counterterrorism, and Gerald Staberock, Secretary-General of the World Organisation Against Torture. 

Has it become harder to defend human rights?

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Fionnuala Ni Aolain: The criminalisation of lawful acts: speech, assembly, political participation, those are all defined, by multiple governments, as terrorism.

Gerald Staberock: 9/11 was like an earthquake to human rights. The house and the façade still look good, legally speaking we still have an absolute prohibition on torture. The façade is there, but the cracks in the houses are there.

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