EU Anti-terror Chief Sounds Warning

Europe's counter-terrorism tsar has called on the West to 'practise what it preaches' on human rights, arguing that only an emphasis on common values will defeat terrorism.

Gijs de Vries said Western nations had to show 'in word and deed' that they were committed to protecting human rights. 'We need to engage much more with moderate Muslims and to show that we represent the same values across religious divides,' De Vries said. 'Those values are [based on] a respect for the sanctity of life, for democracy and for human rights.'

His words will be seen as an attack on the hardline, American approach to counter-terrorism. Last week, Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, concluded a trip to Europe, during which she was confronted with allegations that American intelligence services not only ran secret prisons in eastern Europe, but used European airports to facilitate 'extraordinary renditions' of US-held suspects to other countries for interrogation.

Terrorism will be high on the agenda at this week's European Union summit. A series of trials in France and the Netherlands, along with the death of a Belgian woman, a convert to Islam, in an apparent suicide attack in Iraq, have focused attention on the radicalisation of Muslim communities in Europe.