Classified 'terrorist' groups hold conference in Denmark

COPENHAGEN: Movements from around the world, including some classified as terrorist organisations by the European Union, came together here on Saturday for a conference on anti-terror laws, organisers said.

The two-day event, entitled "Anti-terrorism legislation, political rights and international solidarity", was to "discuss the supposed war against terror which we see as a global menace against democratic rights," conference spokesman Jens Henneberg Andersen said.

Among the groups present were Batasuna, the political wing of armed Basque separatist group ETA, which is on the EU's blacklist, the Palestinian National Council, the Prensa Rural from Colombia, the Bayan Muna from the Philippines, and Sweden's Demokratiuppropet.

The Danish non-governmental organisation Rebellion was the host.

In October, a Rebellion spokesman was indicted under the 2002 Danish anti-terrorist laws for giving money to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), both classified as terrorist organisations by the EU.

"Violent conflicts... should be resolved with dialogue and by negotiation and not just by putting one of the other party into the terrorist category," Henneberg Andersen said.