Ethnic profiling casts suspicion on individuals because of the colour of their skin or perceived religious beliefs rather than their actions, thus violating a basic principle of the rule of law that law enforcement should respond to an individual's conduct.
There is no international or European standard which expressly forbids ethnic profiling as such. Nevertheless, both the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) and the Council of Europe European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) have made clear that ethnic profiling violates the international prohibition against discrimination.
Examples of activities that may involve ethnic profiling:
Immigration control and asylum decision-making
? Questioning, searching and detaining of persons at airports and ports
? Pre-screening and removal of persons from flights
? Pre-screening and screening of immigration applications
? Screening of asylum applications
? Decision-making about immigration and asylum applications
? Stops aimed at rounding up people up for deportation
Definitions of ethnic profiling Simple: "Police and law enforcement officers are using ethnic profiling when they view people as suspicious because of who they are, what they look like, or where they pray, rather than because of what they have done."
Comprehensive: "Ethnic profiling is the use by the police, security, immigration or customs officials of generalisations based on race, ethnicity, religion or national origin - rather than individual behaviour or objective evidence - as the basis for suspicion in directing discretionary law enforcement actions.
It can also include situations where law enforcement policies and practices, although not themselves defined either wholly or in part by reference to ethnicity, race, national origin or religion, nevertheless do have a disproportionate impact on such groups within the population and where this cannot otherwise be justified in terms of legitimate law enforcement objectives and outcomes.
" Attached fact sheet, prepared by ENAR and the Open Society Justice Initiative, explains the concept and practice of ethnic profiling: the use by law enforcement officials of generalisations based on race, ethnicity, religion or national origin, rather than individual behaviour or objective evidence, as the basis for directing discretionary law enforcement actions. Ethnic profiling is a form of discrimination that undermines the commitment to non-discrimination as a fundamental value of the European Union. The European Network Against Racism (ENAR) is an EU-wide network of more than 700 organisations working to combat racism in all the EU member states and acts as the voice of the anti-racist movement in Europe. ENAR is determined to fight racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, to promote equality of treatment between European Union citizens and third country nationals, and to link local/regional/national initiatives with European Union initiatives. http://www.enar-eu.org/ End of Bulletin: Source for this Message: European Network Against Racism (ENAR)