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UN Security Council adopts anti-Terror
Resolution
Pakistan
Times
Monitoring Report
UNITED NATIONS: The UN
Security Council on Friday unanimously adopted a resolution introduced by
Russia to bolster international measures against terrorism.
Resolution 1556 "calls upon states to cooperate fully in the fight against
terrorism, especially with those states where or against whose citizens
terrorist acts are committed."
It said the aim was to "find, deny safe haven and bring to justice" any
"person who supports, facilitates, participates or attempts to participate
in the financing, planning, preparation or commission of terrorist acts or
provides safe havens."
Draft by Russia
Russia submitted the draft shortly after the attack on Beslan, where at
least 344 persons, 172 of them children, died in the world's deadliest
hostage-taking. It was co-sponsored by China, France, Germany, Romania and
the United States.
The most serious debate took place over paragraph three, which was amended
twice.
The Text
The text called terrorism "criminal acts, including against civilians,
committed with the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury, or taking
of hostages, with the purpose to provoke a state of terror in the general
public or in a group of persons or particular persons, intimidate a
population or compel a government or an international organization to do or
to abstain from doing any act, which constitute offenses within the scope of
and as defined in the international conventions and protocols relating to
terrorism, are under no circumstances justifiable by considerations of a
political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or other
similar nature and calls upon all states to prevent such acts and, if not
prevented, to ensure that such acts are punished by penalties consistent
with their grave nature."
Observations by Algeria and Pakistan
UN diplomats, the two Muslim countries represented on the council, Algeria
and Pakistan, had difficulty accepting the text, saying that "including
against civilians" could be construed to include attacks on military
targets, running the risk of classifying even national liberation movements
as terrorist acts.●
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