Governments are using terror attacks to enact laws that are used to silence critical voices, according to International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) regional director for Asia and the Pacific Sam Zarifi.

"For many governments, their obligation to protect people from acts of terrorism ended up being used as an opportunity to put in legal measures that allowed them to target political critics, civil societies and to restrict the space for voices critical of those governments," he told a press conference in Petaling Jaya today.

In Malaysia, he pointed out that ICJ has been critical of the new slew of counter-terrorism laws like Security Offences (Special Measures) Act (Sosma), Prevention of Terrorism Act (Pota) and the National Security Council (NSC) Bill, because it is not clear if these laws genuinely respond to terrorism threats.

These laws, he said, very often are passed through Parliament with very little debate, which is a significant problem with the Malaysian Parliament.

The issue becomes worse when combined with the judiciary in Malaysia, which has been criticised for being too politicised, Zarifi added.

"Lack of a properly independent judiciary means that, when combined with laws which are too broad and poorly drafted, these laws end up being used against people, against whom there isn't proper evidence," he said.

He cited an example where "hundreds of people have been detained under Sosma", and it's quite clear that there isn't proper due process.

As such, ICJ calls for the government to have proper and transparent debates on the real risk of terrorism.

Government should also come up with responses aimed at protecting the people and their human rights, so that it cannot use them as an excuse to target its critics, he said.

"Fighting terrorism is really only successful when it strengthens the rule of law and respect for human rights.

"Unfortunately, we have too many examples of governments weakening the rule of law and respect for human rights under the excuse of countering terrorism.

"Then the result is... there is increased violations of human rights, especially for government critics," Zarifi said.