VIENNA, July 19: The US “war on terror” is encouraging less democratic countries to roll back human rights in the name of security, the UN human rights chief Mary Robinson said on Friday.

Robinson said countries accused of violating human rights have been using crackdowns in the United States and Europe since the September 11 hijack attacks on New York and Washington as justification for their own abuses.

“We’re finding the situation very serious, that there is an erosion of civil liberties in the name of combating terrorism,” Robinson told reporters after voicing the same concerns in a speech to the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

Without naming any states or regions, Robinson said there were problems in particular in what she called “countries without a strong democratic tradition”.

“But when the issue is raised with them, they say, why are you pinning us to those standards when those standards are not being observed in the United States and a number of European countries?”

“Their response is, well look at what is happening in the United States, at the number of people that are being held under immigration laws without a lawyer...Look at what’s happening in European countries, at the harsh treatment of asylum seekers and immigrants,” Robinson said.

Robinson’s concerns echoed those of rights groups such as Amnesty International, which in May accused governments from the United States to South Korea of rushing through laws since September 11 giving themselves emergency powers with little regard for rights.

“We’re getting reports from human rights defenders, trade unionists, journalists around the world that measures are being taken by countries saying that they’re combating terrorism but in fact clamping down on political opposition, freedom of the press, branding activities as being terrorist which were not so described before the 11th of September,” she said.

Robinson said her office was compiling a report on serious cases of rights violations linked to security after September 11 and would present it to the U.N. Security Council, although she did not say when.—Reuters