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Report of the Eminent Jurists Panel on terrorism, counter-terrorism and human rights
started to include similar provisions – see the 2005 Council of Europe Convention
on the Prevention of Terrorism (hereinafter: Council of Europe Convention) requiring
Member States to criminalise “public provocation” of a terrorist act.318
However, States in making domestic provisions for “incitement” appear to have
introduced a much wider array of offences. At different Hearings, attention was
drawn to “new” offences such as “apologia” 319 or “praising”,320 “glorification or
indirect encouragement”,321 “public justification”,322 and the “promotion” of
terrorist acts.323 These “new” offences often criminalise the dissemination, publication and possession of material which are considered to fall foul of the incitement
provisions.324 There are also offences criminalising various forms of support for,
or association with “terrorist organisations”, defined so as to include those that
318 Article 5 of the Council of Europe Convention on the Prevention of Terrorism (hereinafter: Council of Europe
Convention) required States Parties to criminalise “public provocation” of a terrorist offence, defined as “the
distribution, or otherwise making available, of a message to the public, with the intent to incite the commission of a terrorist offence, where such conduct, whether or not directly advocating terrorist offences, causes
a danger that one or more such offences may be committed.” A legislative provision in similar terms is under
consideration by the Council of the European Union: Council Framework Decision amending Framework
Decision 2002/475/JHA on combating terrorism, COM(2007) 650; amendments have been proposed by
the European Parliament: European Parliament legislative resolution of 23 September 2008, P6_TA (2008)
0435, 23 September 2008.
319 Article 218(2) of the Criminal Code of Morocco.
320 Article 578 of the Spanish Penal Code criminalises “praising or justification, through any means of public
expression or broadcasting, of the offences….”.
321 Section 1 of the UK Terrorism Act 2006 provides for offences that “intend members of the public to be directly
or indirectly encouraged or otherwise induced (to terrorism) …; or (ii) is reckless as to whether members
of the public will be directly or indirectly encouraged or otherwise induced….”. The Act clarifies that this
provision includes “every statement which — (a) glorifies the commission or preparation (whether in the
past, in the future or generally) of such acts or offences”.
322 Russia’s Law No. 153-FZ (amendments of a number of federal laws pursuant to the ratification of the Council
of Europe Convention on the Prevention of Terrorism) of 27 July 2006 amended the Penal Code to introduce
a new offence of public justification of terrorism. A note explaining this article says that “public justification
of terrorism shall be understood as public statements which recognize the terrorist ideology and practice
as legitimate and deserving to be supported and emulate” (ICJ translation).
323 Section 9 of the Uganda’s Anti-Terrorism Act of 2002 provides for the death penalty for the offence of
establishing, running, or supporting an institution, for: “(1) (a) promoting terrorism; (b) publishing and
disseminating news or materials that promote terrorism; or… (2) Any person who, without establishing
or running an institution for the purpose, trains any person for carrying out terrorism, (or) publishes or
disseminates materials that promote terrorism…”.
324 Ibid. See also Section 2 of the UK Terrorism Act 2006 which makes it an offence to distribute, circulate, give,
sell, lend, circulate electronically, or have in one’s possession a “terrorist publication” (defined by reference
to provisions including indirectly encouraging/glorifying terrorism).
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