HUMAN WRONGS WATCH

Secretary-General António Guterres addresses reporters at UN Headquarters. UN Photo/Manuel Elias

Guterres, speaking to reporters at UN Headquarters, emphasized: “In my opinion, the US policy is not the way […] to best protect the US or any other country, in relation to the serious concerns that exist about the possibility of terrorist infiltration. I don’t think this is the effective way to do so and I think these measures should be removed sooner rather than later.”

Noting that the measures “violate our basic principles,” he said they are not effective if the objective is to avoid terrorist entering the US.

“We are dealing with very sophisticated global terrorist organizations. If a global terrorist organization [tried] to attack a country like the United States, they will probably not come with people with passports from those countries that are hotspots of conflict today,” said the UN chief, adding that they might come with passports from the most developed in the world, or they might use people that have been for decades sometimes inside the countries.

“And that is why it is so important not to have measures that spread anxiety and anger, because when we adopt measures that spread anxiety and anger, we help trigger the kind of recruitment mechanisms that these organizations are now doing everywhere in the world,” Guterres said.

He noted that the UN has been pushing for the capacity to have very strong measures in relation to management of borders but, at the same time, not to base them on any discrimination linked to nationality, religion or ethnicity.