Today, Friday, a United Nations commission asked France to ensure that the investigation into the killing of a young man, shot by a policeman near Paris, was “comprehensive and impartial” and called on it to ban racial profiling.
The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, made up of 18 independent experts, indicated that it had adopted a declaration on the situation in France expressing its concerns and making a number of recommendations on racial profiling and “excessive use of force by law enforcement authorities”.
In this declaration, the experts also expressed their regret over “the looting and destruction of private and public property, as well as reports of large-scale arrests and detentions of demonstrators.”
The UN committee welcomed the opening of an investigation into the circumstances of Nael’s killing, which led to the outbreak of violence in France.
But she asked Paris to “ensure quickly that the investigation into the circumstances” that led to his death “is thorough and impartial, that the alleged perpetrators be prosecuted and, if convicted, punished in proportion to the seriousness of the crime.”
It also called for “legislation that defines and prohibits racial profiling and clear guidelines for law enforcement personnel, particularly the police, prohibiting racial profiling in policing operations, discriminatory identity checks and other racist behaviour.”
She reiterated her recommendation to the authorities to address as a matter of priority “the structural and systemic causes of racial discrimination, including in the application of the law, in particular in the police” and “calls upon the French people to demand and exercise human rights peacefully”.
The Committee, which monitors implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, adopted the declaration on France under early warning and urgent action measures.
It also expressed deep concern about “the continuing practice of racial profiling as well as the excessive use of force by law enforcement, particularly by the police, against members of minorities, including those of African and Arab descent”.
According to the commission, this situation “often translates into repeated killings…with almost complete impunity.”
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