Prevention Of Terrorism Acts Research Articles

The Legislative Framework of Anti-terrorism and Fundamental Rights in India

The legislative framework governing anti-terrorism measures in India has faced substantial scrutiny regarding its compatibility with fundamental rights enshrined in the country's constitution. This paper aims to elucidate the intricate interplay between anti-terrorism laws and fundamental rights, highlighting the complexities inherent in balancing national security imperatives with individual liberties. The paper further outlines the evolution of anti-terrorism legislation in India, such as the enactment of key laws such as the Terrorism and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) 1987, the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) 2002, and the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) 1967. Fundamental rights are the cornerstone of India's democratic ethos, safeguarding the dignity and freedom of its citizens. By guaranteeing the right to life and personal liberty, freedom of speech and expression, and the right to privacy, the Constitution empowers individuals to participate actively in democratic processes, voice dissent, and hold the government accountable. These rights are not absolute but are subject to reasonable restrictions in the interest of public order, morality, and national security. Despite their crucial importance, fundamental rights often find themselves at odds with the exigencies of national security, particularly in the context of anti-terrorism laws. The paper provides a comprehensive overview of the constitutional bedrock of fundamental rights in India and highlight the tension between anti-terrorism laws and these rights, highlighting the importance of maintaining a delicate balance in upholding democratic principles.

Terrorism and Human Rights: A Critical Study

This research paper deals with the Menace of terrorism in the world and the use of media by terrorist groups, National Security Laws, which include different activities to combat the fear of terrorism. It also includes the different laws of a state to maintain peace and protect people not to be provoked by religion. Terrorism is one of the fears for people across the world are fighting to overcome. Several countries have become victims of terrorism. ISIS was the largest terrorist group all over the world causing damage to the countries. This research paper also deals with different laws and acts in respect of fighting against terrorism such as IPC (Indian Penal Code), POTA (the Prevention of Terrorism Act, 2002). Terrorists are none other than us, who have been misguided. Unemployment, poverty, and conflict are a few examples that give birth to terrorists. Unlike some other countries, India is a socialist country where no religion is superior, but still, people fight over the name of religion. This research paper also talks about the and about the Abrogation of Article 370 and its impact on terrorism. Nowadays, it has become a compelling duty for countries to protect the basic right of human beings and to provide security without jeopardizing them as terrorism constitutes a threat to the country.

The Protection of Pakistan Ordinance: Limitations and Prospects

The main purpose of this research is to examine the prospects and limitations of the Protection of Pakistan Ordinance (PPO), besides analyzing the existing legal framework and laws in Pakistan to deal with terrorism and similar phenomenon. Pakistan needed a law, which could protect citizens from terrorism and also safeguard and guarantee their fundamental and constitutional freedom. An attempt is made to understand the need, practicality, misuse and effectiveness of the PPO. The social dynamics and socio-political environment of the country, is imperative to understand the prevailing legal system in the country. The dilemma Pakistan is facing comprises complex, multifarious and deep-rooted problems and miscalculations. Unfortunately, the previous legal framework related to terrorism was subjected to politicization and over the years did not prove to be much effective. The paper briefly analyzes the historical background of legal framework and the existing legal framework to deal with similar threats, challenges and shortcomings it faces. It also gives a comparative analysis of similar laws implemented in India and USA. The PPO is way less harsher than both the PATRIOT Act and Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), which violate basic human and constitutional rights and the abuses still persist after years of enactment of both the laws.

Judicial Restraint in an Era of Terrorism: Prevention of Terrorism Cases and Minorities in India

The article assesses and compares the behaviour of India’s higher judiciary on Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) cases with the pattern of rulings on previous preventive detention and anti-terror laws in India. It tests the hypothesis in Scaling Justice: India’s Supreme Court, Anti-Terror Laws and Social Rights, that POTA cases would see more pro-state rulings, particularly after incidents of terrorism, but that Muslim minorities would not be unduly targeted by the judges. The findings from the 103 POTA cases affirm the hypothesis that the judgments of the high court and the supreme court do not exhibit a pattern of disfavouring Muslim accused. However, a more disquieting element with worrisome consequences for civil liberties is apparent in the framing of the anti-terror cases. The court is more likely to rule in favour of the state when a case is framed as ‘Islamic terrorism’. The impreciseness of this and other terms such as ‘urgency’ and ‘security threat’ have expanded the scope of the application of anti-terror laws, diluted the ‘due process’ protections, and reduced the ability of judges to make a distinction between the political aspirations and the religious affiliation of the accused. This has diluted the procedural and substantive protection for civil liberties of citizens and vulnerable minorities in India.

Theorising the “suspect community”: counterterrorism, security practices and the public imagination

This article considers Hillyard’s first application of the term “suspect community” to the Irish in Britain in the era of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and its more recent application to Muslims in the global war on terror. A review of the application of the term “suspect community” and research in the field points to the problems associated with constructing an entire population and to problems of misidentification. Ethnographic and other evidence illustrate the stigmatisation, alienation and violence that results from its deployment. Given these difficulties and Greer’s objections to the use of the term “suspect community”, a redefinition of the concept of “suspect community” is proposed, borrowing from Anderson’s concept of the imagined community. The “suspect community” is not merely the product of legal and security apparatuses, but the product of a larger cultural apparatus or “imaginary”. It is redefined as “a community created in and by the securitised imagination and enacted in a processes of ‘othering’ through a range of security practices of counter-terrorism”. The “suspect community” is not an embodied community, but an imagined one, whose boundaries are permeable and shifting and in the eye of the beholder. Its operations are distinct from Islamophobia or anti-Irish racism, yet racism, Islamophobia and other forms of subordination may well be implicated in the process of “othering” the suspect. The effect of being “suspect” on the performance of identity and citizenship is indicated in the conclusion.

Reinventing prevention or exposing the gap? False positives in UK terrorism governance and the quest for pre-emption

This article considers the developments within UK counterterrorism strategy between the Prevention of Terrorism Acts (PTAs) and the recent (2011) reworking of CONTEST. It argues that the performance of prevention within British counterterrorism policy has changed to favour pre-emptive measures, deployed in accordance with knowledge produced about terrorism ‘risk’. However, this shift has been accompanied by the continuation of certain practices of pre-emption. The article integrates the studies of ‘suspect communities’ created by counterterrorism practices into its discussion of risk, elucidating how the production of risky subjectivities has enabled the practice of ‘preventative’ force upon both Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) and contemporary terrorist suspects. The article focuses on these articulations of risky communities, highlighting how they lead to ‘false positives’ in the identification of terrorists and the use of sovereign force (like the death of Jean Charles de Menezes or the assassination of PIRA suspects in Gibraltar) by painting certain racial characteristics and behaviours as imminently dangerous. The article connects the production of suspect communities to the presence of pre-emptive logics within counterterrorism discourse, logics that have consistently produced a ‘gap’ between the terrorist event and its pre-emption, between the suspect community and the figure of the terrorist, then. This ‘gap’ leads to the use of force upon innocent persons – who are temporarily rendered guilty by visualities of ‘suspectness’. As such, the apparent novelty of pre-emptive terrorism governance within British policy framing does not reflect a similar discontinuity in the practice of counterterrorism then – which has consistently deployed suspect communities and produced ‘false positives’ within a politics of pre-emption.

Suspect Community: People's Experience of the Prevention of Terrorism Acts in Britain

An independent research study into people's actual experience of the operation of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), together with a systematic analysis of the impact the legislation has on Great Britain.

Soapbox the prevention of terrorism act

Soapbox the prevention of terrorism act

The Tamil Militants-Before the Accord and After

AFTER THE SIGNING OF THE PEACE ACCORD between India and Sri Lanka on 29 July 1987, the euphoria lasted exactly two and a half months. It was hoped that the accord would put an end to the five-year-old civil war between Sinhalese and Tamils in the north and east that was threatening to tear the island apart. The accord seemed to fulfil all the Tamils' demands: extensive autonomy in their home areas, equal status their language with Sinhala, and a provisional merger of the Northern and Eastern Provinces subject to a referendum. On top of that, it offered India greater influence in the shaping of Sri Lanka's foreign policy. On 28 September these hopes were dashed. The LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam), the strongest and most influential of the guerilla groups, rejected candidates the post of chief administrative officer of the merged Northern and Eastern Province. The LTTE deputy leader Mahatiya expressed the LTTE's side of this impasse in an interview with The Hindu: of the three names submitted to the Indian high commissioner, J.N. Dixit, as the LTTE's list of proposed candidates the post of chief administrative officer (CAO) of the Interim Administrative Council (IAC), they preferred Pathmanathan, an LTTE sympathiser arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and released under the general amnesty militants. His name was substituted Thillainathan, the third name on the list besides Sivananam and Sivagnanasundaram. In talks with Dixit, the LTTE agreed to accept Sivananam, a one-time municipal councillor in Jaffna, though they preferred Pathmanathan. Sivananam, however, declined later for personal reasons, and the LTTE then demanded the appointment of Pathmanathan who comes from the east. This demand was rejected, which was one of the factors that led to the fatal hunger strike by LTTE commander Amirthalingam Tilipan (Yogi).' A few days later,