Government's anti-terror laws fail civil liberties

12.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Mon 22nd Jan 2007

Commenting on today's Joint Committee on Human Rights report into the Council of Europe Convention on the Prevention of Terrorism, Liberal Democrat member of the committee, Dr Evan Harris MP said:

"It is very disappointing that we have had to recommend that the UK is not in a position to ratify this treaty.

"The Government has failed to ensure that our anti-terrorism legislation complies with the safeguards for civil liberties required by the convention.

"Ministers' refusal to change the over-broad definition of terrorism, and its heavily criticised 'glorification' offence, means that we cannot comply with the terms of this convention."