To mark the 10th Anniversary of the September 11th attacks, the International Press Institute (IPI) interviewed Raphael Perl, head of the Action Against Terrorism Unit at the Secretariat of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Prior to assuming his current position, Perl served as the senior analyst for terrorism policy with the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. A graduate of Georgetown University’s Foreign Service and Law Schools, he has served as an advisor to Jane’s on the structuring and content of their “Crisis Communications Handbook”, a guide for working with stakeholders and the media in times of crisis. He was also instrumental in developing a crisis tabletop exercise training program for journalists, government spokespersons, law enforcement and first responders. Raphael Perl has testified before Congress on terrorism policy issues, including the 9/11 Commission Report recommendations, and has addressed the UN General Assembly on the role of regional organisations in implementing the UN global counter-terrorism strategy.
Extracts from the interview follow:
IPI: A decade after September 11th, how would you rate the balance between the effectiveness of current anti-terror mechanisms and the safeguarding of fundamental human rights and liberties around the world?
Perl: You want me to evaluate the current CT measures 10 years after, and how does this relate to the balance of human rights?
IPI: Yes. Especially in non-democratic countries, there have been suggestions that those autocratic regimes have jumped on the anti-terrorism wagon to silence critics.
Perl: I think we have been extremely effective in preventing terrorist attacks even though there have been terrorist attacks since and will always be terrorist attacks. So if we think of terrorism as a pipeline with radicalisation and recruitment at the beginning of the pipeline and the bomb and the bullet at the end of the pipeline, tactically we have had enormous success. I think this has been at enormous costs to civil liberties and I think now that we have become more tactically secure we should be thinking more strategically, and part of that strategic thinking means to move that thinking to the beginning of the pipeline and addressing some of the causes of the facilitators of terrorism, looking at radicalisation and making sure that in combating terrorism we follow the following principle: combating terrorism has two, I would say, equally important components and that is: 1) security and preventing attacks and 2) protecting civil liberties and human rights. And the freedom of the media is a very, very important component. The media plays a very important role in counter-terrorism and can also be a facilitator.
IPI: Could you elaborate a little on the extent to which the media can be a facilitator of terrorism?
Perl: In times of terrorist attacks, the media can contribute to the spreading of rumours, to the spreading of panic, of giving publicity to the terrorists’ cause. Very often the media’s focus … is on why the terrorist has committed a particular act or how the terrorist attempts to justify a particular act. We live in a world where news has to be real time … and old news is no news, so very often it can be a question of a thousandth of a second whose news coverage or particular item goes forward. So there is not always time to check sources the way professional journalists would like to do. And in times like that, terrorists will attempt to manipulate or use media to promote their own causes. And of course, governments very often see the media or believe that the media should be an instrument of government policy and will attempt to win the media’s support and have a facilitative role also.
IPI: I am intrigued by an element of what you’ve just mentioned, and it’s a very difficult area to deal with – especially from the perspective of press freedom organisations: the giving of exposure – of publicity – to terrorists. Where does one draw the line between journalists who, for example, interview militants, and obviously there are journalists in Western media outlets who have done so and do so, and journalists who are committing crimes? From the perspective of a Western-oriented, professional media perspective, interviewing a militant is not per se a criminal act but inciting, facilitating, calling for the funding of terrorism, etc., is. How difficult is it to draw the line? There have been suggestions that journalists have been arrested simply for doing their job. I think it was in Afghanistan a year ago, a couple of journalists for Al Jazeera were arrested by [International Security Assistance Force] forces, and one of them at least was released very shortly after the accusation that these guys were propagandising terrorism. How do you draw the line?
Perl: Well it is very difficult to draw the line because there is no clear line and every society will see the line in different places. I want to answer your question but I want to get back to one other area: how those journalists can facilitate terrorist goals and particularly when there is a terrorist incident taking place, for example, when it is a hostage incident it very much serves the needs of the government that people don’t … the terrorists don’t know they have a very important hostage, for example, or that the government plans to use tear gas or break though the roof to attack the terrorists so at times like this the media can provide great – inadvertently – great operational support to the terrorists and it can also result in loss of human life or damage to human life. So that’s the problem from the perspective of the government and also the hostage that you have to be very concerned about.
I’ll go back to your other question, please repeat it to me:
IPI: How difficult is it to draw the line between criminal acts committed by people effectively using the cover of journalism in terms of facilitating terrorism and acts that are not criminal even though we may have some ethical questions?
Perl: Sure. Just to point out: If you remember, a journalist once used the cover of journalism to assassinate the head of the Northern Alliance [in Afghanistan], but that’s on the side.
IPI: And equally the police have used the cover of journalist on occasion …
Perl: So it’s extremely difficult. I think one should always air or give more freedom to … I would draw the line more liberally with a liberal interpretation with the presumption that interviewing anybody is something that serves the overall interest of society. Also if we interview terrorists we learn more about what their goals are, how they think. We learn maybe more about how they operate and where they are situated. So there are definite benefits to interviewing terrorists that I would say in most cases far outweigh any negative component of glorification or publicity given to terrorists in the situation.
IPI: Was it acceptable in your view to interview Bin Laden?
Perl: I see it as quite acceptable and, not only acceptable, I see it as desirable but at the same time, in conjunction with an interview like that, I sense a responsible media will also draw attention to some of the damage that has been caused by the organisation and some of the human suffering because the media all too often is unbalanced – they focus on the terrorist act and the terrorist cause and don’t focus on the victim, and terrorism is about victims. And we are all potential victims of terrorism. We all pay the economic costs of high security and we all pay the civil liberties costs of higher security.
IPI: So in effect the problem lies not so much with interviewing terrorists but with the failure to adopt, in such interviews and in the pursuit of journalistic practices, the balance that the profession ethically requires?
Perl: I am not a journalist and it’s not for me to decide what balance is ethically required; but my problem, or what is often perceived as a problematic with these types of interviews, is that they are extremely one-sided, and it concentrates on the terrorist, on his goals, and it humanises the terrorist and basically dehumanises the victim by not giving equal time to the victim.
IPI: Quite a few people are quite disappointed with President Obama and they would probably be disappointed with any other president who had given the impression that as time went on, and as the wounds began to heal … that there would be some action to kind of roll back what many people regarded as an erosion of civil liberties. And the perception is that that’s not really happening. Does that mean that the erosion of civil liberties in the United States is here to stay?
Perl: It’s not for me to decide that, but I think it’s well-established that once civil liberties are lost or restricted, it’s extremely difficult to get them back. And one of the things that I’ve been very concerned about is that if we have some kind of a massive catastrophic terrorist attack where it becomes necessary for the government, to ensure the survival and functioning of society, to severely restrict civil liberties and, let’s say, impose some sort of state of martial law, how do you get those liberties back? And governments do have contingency plans for responding to catastrophic attacks, and I’ve always maintained that it’s extremely important to build in to those contingency plans a phased-in restoration of civil liberties and I’m not certain that this is always the case in terms of the planning.
IPI: Sure.
Perl: I want say one thing: security is extremely important for people. There was a poll that was conducted immediately after 9/11 in the U.S. where respondents were asked if they would rather have more freedom or more security, and 70 percent or more of the respondents responded “more security”. So security is a very powerful and potent human need and it’s not always compatible with maximum levels of freedom.
IPI: If one goes on the belief that there are certain universal, inalienable rights that are associated with freedom, then a scenario like this is potentially quite a dangerous one, particularly when one also goes on the belief that security is actually tied up with the preservation of human rights. If we get ourselves into a situation in which we see the erosion of civil liberties, not just at home, but across the world, and this is a situation that gets worse and worse and not better, then would it be fair to say that this is something that should be of quite serious concern to governments?
Perl: I don’t think that we can look at this in a vacuum. We need to look at the erosion of civil liberties to the degree that it’s taking place in conjunction with the need of the state to protect and provide security for its citizens. And I always maintain that the most basic human right is the right to life and if we look at terrorists, essentially part of their tactic denies individuals that right to life and that is the evil that they present and that’s core to terrorists’ activities. Core to most government activity is not denying individuals the right to life.
Another problem that I’d like to talk about, and I think its very important to journalists, if one looks at the data, which I don’t have immediately in front of me, more and more journalists are becoming targets of terrorists attacks, and I think in this regard the government and the media have a responsibility, or at least the government and journalists have a common interest to work together. That’s another issue; the issue of when should governments allow the media to enter into areas which are basically war zones and where they might be kidnapped and so on. And my personal opinion is, let the journalist assume the risk, it should be an informed assumption of risk, but let the journalist assume the risk.
IPI: A perfect example of that is Pakistan, which according to our records is one of the most dangerous countries in the world now for journalists, most of whom are falling victim to terrorism, basically.
Perl: Daniel Pearl assumed the risk.
IPI: Absolutely. And Pakistan is also an interesting example of a state that from our perspective as well is very hard to get our understanding wrapped around. On the one hand it’s held up as an ally in the war on terror, and on the other you have the [Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan’s intelligence agency], which ostensibly maintains links with the Taliban and which is allegedly even involved in deadly attacks on journalists.
To what extent do you think that this is a product of the post-Sep. 11th environment in which intelligence agencies, not just in Pakistan but elsewhere as well, particularly in countries that consider themselves and are considered as allies in the war in terrorism, can act without any accountability, with virtual impunity when it comes to shutting down critical journalist voices. Obviously we know this happened before as well, but we saw an upsurge in intelligence agencies in targeting journalists in this kind of post-Sep. 11th environment.
Perl: Governments that want to restrict civil liberties find it much easier to do so and to seemingly justify their actions in the face of great threats, and terrorism is potentially a great threat and it is portrayed and used by governments that want to restrict civil liberties as one of the justifications.
IPI: To what extent is it incumbent upon the United States and other Western democracies, particularly in the post Sep. 11th environment, to balance interests with seeking to ensure that human rights are respected, particularly by countries that are considered allies in the war on terror?
Perl: I think we are talking about strategic issues and tactical issues. In tactical situations the government has to provide security. If someone wants to shoot me or to shoot you and I’m the government and I’m there, my job is not to think about human rights but to protect you and to eliminate the threat. If someone thinks strategically what maybe caused this particular person to try to kill you and how perhaps the violation of human rights functions as a trigger then I have more time to deal with this. And that’s a little bit of what I’ve been suggesting in my initial framework here. I talked about the end of the pipeline, that tactically we’ve been very successful in winning, in curbing terrorism – but strategically there still is a lot to be accomplished and that’s where we need to focus our efforts. So the answer is, save life immediately and in your long-term policy protect human rights, and when you save life immediately try not to violate human rights in the process.
IPI: There are conventions that clearly state that even in the face of clear and present danger it is incumbent upon governments and others to ensure that certain fundamental rights are respected, so where would you fit in the notion under the George W Bush presidency that it was effectively ok to torture people?
Perl: I don’t necessarily think that that was a policy of the Bush administration … The issue of torture is an extremely complicated situation and the extreme example being the ticking bomb situation: a terrorist calls up the media and says, “I have a nuclear bomb in New York or London or Vienna and it will explode in seven hours.” And you don’t know where it is. And you have this person in custody and you are facing two million people in casualties, the destruction of a city that would be radioactive and unusable for the next 30 years. What does a government do, a government charged with the responsibility of protecting its citizens? And I’m glad that I don’t have to make that decision. A country like Israel actually has a procedure for a situation like that where you have to go before a series of judges, I think a panel of three judges, who are generally very committed to protecting civil liberties and get permission from the judicial system to make an exception to policies that prohibit torture or severe interrogations in the greater interest of society.
IPI: How do you see Al Jazeera in all this? It’s not the only media outlet that’s grabbed the headline in the aftermath of Sep. 11th, but it’s been at the forefront – in great part because of its airing of Bin Laden audio tapes and other terrorists and also because of the imprisonment for eight years, and subsequent release without charge, of an Al Jazeera journalist in Guantanamo Bay.
Perl: I see Al Jazeera as performing an excellent role in terms of a media role in informing and engaging the public. Where I see Al Jazeera falling short is in the balanced objectivity of reporting.
IPI: What would you say to the concerns expressed by Al Jazeera about for example this journalist who was locked up for eight years at Guantanamo Bay and then released without charge?
Perl: I wouldn’t comment on that because I think that would be something to ask the policy makers of Guantanamo Bay. But in war, in situations where national security is threatened or perceived to be threatened … if you feel that your family or your home is threatened, people take courses of action, many mistakes are made, by both sides, by all sides, so it’s hard to look back and say that it should have been done differently. Any war that has happened, if we look in retrospect to World War II, in combat all sorts of violations of human rights took place or in perceived situations where life and death is at stake. And let’s say hypothetically, 50 people were detained and information from two of them saved tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of lives. So two are on target and 48 mistakes were made and those 48 mistakes are horrible tragedies for those 48 individuals and the families of those individuals. But from the perspective of a government protecting the society, the government in a situation like that would … feel that it had done its responsibility to its citizens.
IPI: So it would effectively be going down the path of suggesting that there are times when no matter how regrettable it might be, the ends justify the means.
Perl: We go back to the ticking bomb again, the nuclear bomb.
IPI: Do the ends ever justify the means?
Perl: It’s not for me to decide. There are certain international norms and what happens in history very often is the people who write the history, they come up on top. They write the history and they write the rules and they write the norms.
IPI: What would your message be to the media in general, journalist in general 10 years after Sept 11th?
Perl: Keep reporting and do what is necessary to stay alive.
