UN experts call for ban on racial profiling

Geneva, Feb 3: Human rights experts on Friday called ongovernments to ban racial profiling by police and law enforcementofficers, including so-called ''terrorist profiling'', and toinvestigate any abuses.

While racial discrimination was clearly outlawed, people of acertain racial or ethnic type were still singled out in investigationsinto crimes or terrorism, according to the United Nations Working Groupof Experts on People of African Descent.

''The working group urges states to clearly define and adoptexplicit legislative provisions banning racial profiling,'' it said inrecommendations issued after a week-long session.

The ''systematic and historic targeting'' had perpetuated''profoundly negative stigmatisation and stereotyping of persons ofAfrican descent as having a propensity to criminality,'' according tothe experts.

''In most of the cases in which racial profiling has been applied,no significant results have been achieved in terms of enhancedsecurity'', they added.

The so-called war on terrorism, which intensified after the Sept.11 suicide attacks, carried out by Islamic militants, mainly SaudiArabians, had led to greater use of profiling practices, they noted.

''Terrorist profiling practices that are based on 'race' violateinternational human rights standards'' and discrimination andintolerance against Muslims had ''devastating effects'' on theircommunities, according to the experts.

UN special rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism MartinScheinin said evidence suggested such practices based on ethnicity,national origin or religion were an unsuitable and ineffective means tocounter terrorism.

''They affect thousands of innocent people without producingconcrete results,'' the Finnish law professor said in an address to thegroup, of which he is not a member.

Such measures were permissible only if there was reasonableevidence that a person fitted the description of a suspect in a crime,Scheinin said.

Joe Frans of Sweden, the European region's expert in the UN group,said: ''Racial profiling is a serious human rights problem affectingmillions of people of African descent residing in Europe, in even themost routine aspects of their lives.'' ''Ethnic profiling iswidespread, yet remains little documented and not clearly prohibitedunder European law,'' he added.

The five-member expert group was set up after the World Conferenceagainst Racism, held in Durban, South Africa in 2001, but it was thefirst time it examined racial profiling abuses.

Reuters>