Too many states are using legitimate public concerns about terrorism, as an excuse to target individuals or communities they don’t like.

That’s the blunt view of Ahmed Shaheed, UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, who was at UN Headquarters this week to deliver a report to the UN General Assembly.

When he sat down to talk to UN News’s Siwen Qian from our Chinese service, Mr. Shaheed emphasized the need to balance counter-terrorism measures with rights protection, saying that countries like China had a responsibility to ensure freedom of religion and belief.