John Shattuck, CEO of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, delivered a speech last week on <a title="Boston Globe Online / Editorials | Opinions / Human rights in an age of terrorism" human rights in an age of terrorism at the University of Western Bohemia in the Czech Republic. Among his points:

"Democratic countries have to find ways of helping people who are living under tyranny. This must be done carefully so that it doesn't cause repressive governments to crack down even more. But it has to be done, because repression breeds human rights abuse, and human rights abuse breeds terror. Authoritarian countries must be encouraged to reform, and reformers within those countries supported for what they are trying to do."

"The danger today is that, as the NATO alliance joins with the United States in fighting the war on terrorism, it will ignore what the world should have learned since 1989 about the urgency of defending human rights. If in the name of fighting terror we abandon the struggle for human rights, we should certainly know by now that in the long run we are only likely to have more terror. "