Philippines: President signs anti-terrorism bill into law

On 6 March, President Arroyo signed into law the Human Security Act of 2007, a new anti-terrorism law passed by Congress at a special session in February. On 13 March, Martin Scheinin, UN Human Rights Council expert on counter-terrorism and human rights, expressed concern about the Act for, among other reasons, its broad definition of terrorist acts, insufficient procedural guarantees regarding pre-charge detention and the low evidentiary threshold for the imposition of house arrest on terrorist suspects. Martin Scheinin encouraged the Parliament to amend the legislation at its next regular session.

Human Security Act UN SR Statement