By DPA
Strasbourg (France) : The Council of Europe demanded Wednesday that terrorist suspects on secret European Union (EU) and United Nations lists should have at least minimal protection under the law.
People on the lists should be informed of the allegations against them, the council decided by a large majority in a parliamentary assembly in the French city of Strasbourg.
The assembly stressed that there should be a time limit to any entry on terrorist-suspect lists.
The EU and the UN should alter the procedure by which people are placed on the lists to “comply with the principles of the rule of law and human rights.”
The council heard the example of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI), which successfully fought a case against being classified as a terrorist organization at the European Court of Justice, but which still remains on the blacklist.
The PMOI has said that it has launched a fresh case to have its name removed.
“People remain on these lists for years without knowing why, and their lives are ruined,” said liberal Swiss lawmaker Dick Marty, who in November 2007 denounced the “arbitrary practices” in drawing up the lists.
Being placed on the list was tantamount to “a kind of death sentence” for individuals, Marty said.
Their accounts were frozen and business activities destroyed, as they were banned from doing business, and they couldn’t travel outside their countries, he said.
Marty, 63 and a former state prosecutor, made a name for himself in Europe by investigating undercover CIA “rendition” flights and prisons.
Marty was unable to say how many innocent people had been placed on the lists.
The United Nations says it has some 370 people worldwide on its blacklist, while the EU has some 60 on its. They were “all Muslim,” Marty said.