United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan on Sunday raised concerns that the fight against terrorism was undermining human rights and civil liberties.
"I feel very strongly as you look around the world, there are disturbing developments where governments in the fight against terrorism sometimes take steps or measures which undermine human rights and civil liberties," Annan told reporters following a meeting with Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen in Marienborg, north of Copenhagen.
"It gives the terrorists a victory they cannot win on their own," he said. Annan called on governments to be "sensitive" to the issue and "to make sure we do not undermine the basic rule of law."
He added that terrorist activity often flares up in countries where human rights have been violated and laws ignored.
Annan was in Denmark to attend a general meeting of directors of the UN World Food Programme from 80 countries.
He will be in Geneva on Monday to inaugurate the new UN Human Rights Council, which is replacing the world organisation's former rights commission, which was widely discredited by the dominant presence of countries with poor human rights records, such as China, and behind-the-scenes bargaining. In an effort to avoid the charge levelled at the commission that it was selective in the cases it treats, the new council will carry out systematic reviews of the human rights situation in each of the UN member countries.