The year 2004 has been a challenging year for the IRCT and the movement against torture.Many of the results that we have achieved with regard to human rights and better treatment for victims of torture through many years’ hard work have been challenged in a way that we would not have imagined just a few years ago.As a response to this development,the Council of the IRCT at its annual meeting in Turkey in October agreed to the Antalya Declaration.This declaration condemns the use of any kind of state and non state terrorist act for any purpose whatsoever,since these acts constitute a gross violation of human rights,mostly against innocent civilians. But the threat of terrorism does not allow states to lower the standards for human rights as contained in international human rights and humanitarian law that have been laboriously developed since the Second World War.
