The European Parliament Thursday strongly condemned the "brutal massacre of schoolchildren on December 16 perpetrated by the Pakistani Taliban splinter group Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) as an act of horror and cowardice." The EP in a resolution called on the government of Pakistan to take "urgent and effective measures" in keeping with internationally recognised standards on the rule of law and to strengthen its efforts to arrest and prosecute TTP militants It also urged the Pakistani government to abide by the recently ratified international agreements on human rights and "to reserve anti-terrorism laws for acts of terror, instead of using them to try ordinary criminal cases."