22 years on from 9/11, the Global War on Terror remains a universal menace

<p dir="ltr">London - The political and legal infrastructure that has been built over the last 22 years of the Global War on Terror has brutally imposed an international consensus that exploits the language of anti ‘terrorism’ and ‘extremism’ to justify wars, ethnic cleansing, mass surveillance and the destruction of the rule of law and personal freedoms. An oppressive infrastructure akin to totalitarianism has been exported and implanted into every legal system across the globe leading to the collapse of fundamental freedoms.</p> <p dir="ltr">The Guantanamo trials which epitomise the barbarity of legal exceptionalism are collapsing under the weight of torture evidence, lack of due process and inhumane treatment so as to expose the gravity of the injustice on so called ‘enemy combatants’.</p> <p dir="ltr">The War on Terror has not only failed but destroyed basic humanitarian principles across domestic and international frameworks so that the enemy has gone beyond Muslims to include all who engage in dissent.</p> <h3 dir="ltr">Anas Mustapha, Head of Public Advocacy at CAGE said:</h3> <p dir="ltr">“Whilst many recognise global catastrophes that wars of aggression under the guise of the War on Terror have brought, fewer appreciate the ongoing dangers of the political and legal infrastructure built off the back of it.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“Laws legitimising the ethnic cleansing of the Uighurs in the far east, restricting the right to protest in the West, or allowing for mass surveillance are built on to the rationale of the War on Terror.</p> <p dir="ltr">“The US has provided the language and legal framework for state abuse of power on a colossal scale, now is the time for the world to wake up and jettison its anti-Muslim prejudice and recognise that the freedoms of all are now under violent attack from the horrors of the War on Terror.”</p>