China is looking to introduce an anti-terrorism law to combat
threats from both home and abroad, experts have said.
Zhao Bingzhi, president of the criminal law research committee
of the China Law Society, who has been involved in discussing the
draft law, said: "China has been very active in the establishment
of an anti-terrorism legal framework and authorities are busy
drafting a separate law to better fight terrorism."
He told the Workshop on the Global Legal Framework Against
Terrorism yesterday in Beijing that the draft will take into
consideration the terrorism situation China currently faces and all
relevant international conventions.
Zhao did not reveal a timeframe for the draft law.
However, the latest legislative plan of the Standing Committee
of the National People's Congress (NPC), the country's top
legislature, has said that an anti-terrorism law might form part of
its next five-year plan, which starts next year.
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Earlier media reports said the law would define terrorist
activities, the responsibilities and obligations of anti-terrorism
authorities and how to fight terrorism both at home and abroad, all
of which lack clarity in existing laws.
Li Qinglin, vice-president of the China Law Society, the co-host
of the workshop, said growing terrorist forces worldwide pose a
serious threat to all countries, including China, and it is crucial
to improve legislation to provide a legal footing for
anti-terrorism activities.
In January, police in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region said they had
killed 18 terrorists and arrested 17 others during a raid on a
training camp run by the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, or ETIM,
which the United Nations labeled a terrorist organization in
2002.
ETIM, which is believed to be connected to Al-Qaida according to
the Xinhua News Agency, plotted more than 200 violent incidents
including explosions, assassinations, arson attacks, poisonings and
assaults in Xinjiang and overseas between 1990 and 2001, killing
162 people and injuring 440, official data shows.
Jean-Paul Laborde, chief of the terrorism prevention branch of
the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, said: "Terrorism is
an international concern and no country is 100 percent safe."
He said China had always played a crucial role in the
negotiations and adoption of the Global Counter-terrorism Strategy,
which the UN adopted last year, and the country had also made good
progress with its national anti-terrorism legislation.
In December 2001, three months after the September 11 terrorist
attack on New York, China amended its Criminal Law and added more
than 10 crimes of terrorism "to deal more harshly with the criminal
acts of terrorists".
In October, it also adopted the Anti-Money Laundering Law to
help combat the financing of terrorism.
(China Daily May 31, 2007)