111th CONGRESS Printed for the use of the 

2d Session Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe 

ETHNIC AND RACIAL PROFILING IN 

THE OSCE REGION 

MARCH 22, 2010 

Briefing of the 

Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe 

Washington: 2014 
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Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe 

234 Ford House Office Building 

Washington, DC 20515 

202–225–1901 

csce@mail.house.gov 

http://www.csce.gov 

Legislative Branch Commissioners 

HOUSE SENATE 

ALCEE L. HASTINGS, FLORIDA, 

Co-Chairman 

EDWARD J. MARKEY, MASSACHUSETTS

LOUISE MCINTOSH SLAUGHTER, 

NEW YORK

MIKE MCINTYRE, NORTH CAROLINA

G.K. BUTTERFIELD, NORTH CAROLINA

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, NEW JERSEY

ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, ALABAMA

JOSEPH R. PITTS, PENNSYLVANIA

DARRELL E. ISSA, CALIFORNIA

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, MARYLAND, 

Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, CONNECTICUT

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, RHODE ISLAND

TOM UDALL, NEW MEXICO

JEANNE SHAHEEN, NEW HAMPSHIRE

SAM BROWNBACK, KANSAS

SAXBY CHAMBLISS, GEORGIA

RICHARD BURR, NORTH CAROLINA

ROBERT F. WICKER, MISSISSIPPI

Executive Branch Commissioners 

MICHAEL H. POSNER, DEPARTMENT OF STATE

ALEXANDER VERSHBOW, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

MICHAEL C. CAMUN ̃ EZ, DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

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ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION FOR SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE 

The Helsinki process, formally titled the Conference on Security and Cooperation in 

Europe, traces its origin to the signing of the Helsinki Final Act in Finland on August 

1, 1975, by the leaders of 33 European countries, the United States and Canada. As of 

January 1, 1995, the Helsinki process was renamed the Organization for Security and 

Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The membership of the OSCE has expanded to 56 participating States, reflecting the breakup of the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. 

The OSCE Secretariat is in Vienna, Austria, where weekly meetings of the participating States’ permanent representatives are held. In addition, specialized seminars and 

meetings are convened in various locations. Periodic consultations are held among Senior 

Officials, Ministers and Heads of State or Government. 

Although the OSCE continues to engage in standard setting in the fields of military 

security, economic and environmental cooperation, and human rights and humanitarian 

concerns, the Organization is primarily focused on initiatives designed to prevent, manage 

and resolve conflict within and among the participating States. The Organization deploys 

numerous missions and field activities located in Southeastern and Eastern Europe, the 

Caucasus, and Central Asia. The website of the OSCE is: <www.osce.org>. 

ABOUT THE COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE 

The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the Helsinki 

Commission, is a U.S. Government agency created in 1976 to monitor and encourage 

compliance by the participating States with their OSCE commitments, with a particular 

emphasis on human rights. 

The Commission consists of nine members from the United States Senate, nine members from the House of Representatives, and one member each from the Departments of 

State, Defense and Commerce. The positions of Chair and Co-Chair rotate between the 

Senate and House every two years, when a new Congress convenes. A professional staff 

assists the Commissioners in their work. 

In fulfilling its mandate, the Commission gathers and disseminates relevant information to the U.S. Congress and the public by convening hearings, issuing reports that 

reflect the views of Members of the Commission and/or its staff, and providing details 

about the activities of the Helsinki process and developments in OSCE participating 

States. 

The Commission also contributes to the formulation and execution of U.S. policy 

regarding the OSCE, including through Member and staff participation on U.S. Delegations to OSCE meetings. Members of the Commission have regular contact with 

parliamentarians, government officials, representatives of non-governmental organizations, and private individuals from participating States. The website of the Commission 

is: <www.csce.gov>. 

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ETHNIC AND RACIAL PROFILING IN THE OSCE REGION 

MARCH 22, 2010 

PARTICIPANTS 

Page 

Dr. Mischa Thompson, Policy Advisor, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe . 1 

Rosalind Williams, Plaintiff, Williams v. Spain ........................................................................... 2 

Rachel Neild, Senior Advisor, Open Society Justice Initiative ................................................... 3 

Jamil Dakwar, Director, Human Rights Program, American Civil Liberties Union ................ 5 

APPENDIX 

Material submitted for the briefing record by Rachel Neild ....................................................... 23 

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ETHNIC AND RACIAL PROFILING IN THE OSCE REGION 

MARCH 22, 2010 

Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe

Washington, DC

The briefing was held at 2 p.m. in room 201/200, Senate Visitors Center, Washington, 

DC, Dr. Mischa Thompson, Policy Advisor, Commission on Security and Cooperation in 

Europe, moderating. 

Panelists present: Dr. Mischa Thompson, Policy Advisor, Commission on Security and 

Cooperation in Europe; Rosalind Williams, Plaintiff, Williams v. Spain; Rachel Neild, 

Senior Advisor, Open Society Justice Initiative; and Jamil Dakwar, Director, Human 

Rights Program, American Civil Liberties Union. 

Dr. THOMPSON. Good afternoon. I’m Dr. Mischa Thompson with the U.S. Helsinki 

Commission. I think as many of you may know, Sunday marked the international day for 

the elimination of racial discrimination. I’m happy that you’re able to join us today to discuss racial and ethnic profiling, an issue that is critical to efforts to eliminate racial 

discrimination, which is also unfortunately a prevalent issue in the 56 North American 

and European countries that make up the OSCE region. 

Helsinki Commission Chairman Senator Ben Cardin, Co-Chairman Alcee Hastings 

and other Commissioners began efforts some years ago to combat intolerance and 

discrimination in the OSCE region. Now, 5 years later, the OSCE has an established 

tolerance unit that publishes an annual hate crimes report, has three personal representatives to address these issues and has developed numerous initiatives to address prejudice 

and discrimination. 

The issue of racial or ethnic profiling within the OSCE region is one that is common 

to many OSCE countries and has been raised repeatedly. In particular, the Commission, 

U.S. Government and organizations such as the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and Human Rights First have called for a response to the profiling of Roma, Muslims, persons of African descent or Blacks, and other groups in Europe and in the United 

States, and it’s often been raised in the context of combating hate crimes. 

The OSCE’s High Commissioner on National Minorities has convened experts to discuss the issue of multiethnic policing, which resulted in numerous recommendations, specially, ‘‘the experts recommended that measures should be taken to ensure that police 

enforce the law in an impartial and nondiscriminatory manner, which does not single out 

any particular group, for example, by engaging in racial profiling.’’ Additionally, the report 

called for diversity in law enforcement. 
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Despite these efforts, the issue of profiling is not going away, and one could argue, 

has become more challenging to address amidst Government efforts to fight terrorism. 

Today, our panelists will discuss the situation in the United States and Europe, and international approaches for addressing the problem. 

I am especially pleased that our guest from Spain, Rosalind Williams, was able to 

adjust her schedule at the last minute to be here to speak with us about her historic case. 

I would also like to welcome Rachel Nield, an expert from OSI, who has worked across 

Europe on this issue; and Jamil Dakwar, who has raised the U.S. case at the United 

Nations and within the OSCE. Ms. Williams? 

Ms. WILLIAMS. Thank you, Dr. Thompson, I welcome this opportunity to share my 

experience with all that would like to be aware of it. As was pointed out just now, the 

idea, or the concept of racial profiling rather than decreasing is increasing. 

I am a citizen of Spain. I also am a citizen of the United States. Citizen of the United 

States by birth; I was born in New Orleans. A year-and-a-half age, my parents took me 

to San Francisco. So I was educated in San Francisco, resided there, went to college there. 

And through my college in San Francisco, I first went to Spain on a junior year abroad 

program, and met during that year I was there, a person who was born in Spain, is a 

Spanish national and White: my husband, whom I married in 1968. 

In 1968, prior to going to Spain, I was working in New York at the U.N. for 2 years 

and decided to return to Spain and established it after we were married at Christmastime 

as my permanent residence—and at that time, upon marrying a Spanish national, 

acquired by married Spanish nationality. I mention this because this is important as 

background for how what I did and am doing was actually carried out. 

All right, what exactly happened? What happened was on December 6, 1992, I was 

traveling with my family—with my husband and my son—to a regional capital, regional 

city, close to Madrid, 2 hours north of Madrid—Valladolid—by train. As I stepped off the 

train, I was approached by a gentleman who turned out to be a plainclothes policeman 

who asked me for my ID. 

Now, as a Spanish citizen, as all Spanish citizens, you are required to carry with you 

at all times your national identification card, which I always have done since 1968. Since 

I had never, ever been asked for my ID and I noticed that no one else was being asked 

for their identification, I asked him just very spontaneously, why? At which point, both 

my husband and I asked him, why? He said, because we’re looking for people like her. 

And we asked him, what do you mean, ‘‘Like her?’’ And my husband said, because of the 

color of her skin? He said, yes, because there are lots of illegal immigrants like her. At 

which point—as was asked at our meeting just recently in New York, what was my reaction—my reaction was, I was totally dumbfounded. I was without words. 

To make a very long story short, the next day—oh, I must say parenthetically that 

December 6th is a national holiday in Spain and is called the national day of the constitution. So I filed a complaint the next day with the local police station. And once we were 

back in Madrid because it was a 4-day weekend, I sought legal assistance because I knew 

I would have to go to this town perhaps to be in court, et cetera. And what we were 

looking for was a specialist in constitutional law because what I was questioning was the 

constitutionality of what had happened to me as a Spanish citizen. 
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And at the same time, since at that time in 1992, Spain had supposedly the most 

modern constitution in Europe, I, again, was dumbfounded. I said to myself, how on Earth 

can a country that has such a modern constitution actually employ racial profiling? 

To make a very long story short, the lawyer was not pro bono, as is the case. Such 

a system does not exist in Spain nor is there a Spanish version at that time of the American Civil Liberties Union—[laughter]—therefore this was an effort which we had to support with personal funds. 

All right, so from 1992 to 2001, the case was taken through the Spanish court 

system. And each time it was rejected, we appealed. So this happened a total of between 

four and five times, all right. 

After it was thrown out, it finally reached a dead end which was called the constitutional court. It was rejected saying, yes, in essence, citizens of Spain could be stopped for 

their ID based on the color of their skin after 9 years. So I was found—I didn’t look for 

it, but found by two organizations in Spain. One was Women’s Link Worldwide, which 

was working directly with the Open Society Justice Initiative. And through these 

organizations, the case was taken to the United Nations Human Rights Committee, which 

ruled after deliberating—it was presented in 2006; the actual case was considered and 

deliberated 2008, 2009; and a decision was arrived at in July 2009. 

All right, the suggestion was that I be offered a public apology on the part of the 

Government in Spain, that reparation be provided and that measures be taken on the part 

of the Spanish Government to put in place laws, et cetera, that will prohibit such an 

incident as I experienced. 

I, after that, received invitations on the part of several very high-level authorities to 

meet with me on a one-on-one basis, expressing their apologies on the part of the Government, expressing an interest in seeing how some reparation could be made, and also 

expressing the fact that there were certain measures in the form of laws being considered 

on the drawing board on the part of the Government. Yet, the actual, I would say, suggestions that the Committee had made, put forth, have not fully been met. 

I think that’s about it in a nutshell. I stayed under the time limit. [Laughter.] 

Ms. NEILD. Thank you very much, Mischa. My name is Rachel Neild. I am a Senior 

Advisor with the equality and citizenship program of the Open Society Justice Initiative. 

When we use the term ‘‘ethnic profiling,’’ what we describe is when law enforcement 

target people because of who they are rather than because of what they have done. This 

is a form of discrimination that is illegal under international and under European law. 

It is humiliating and hurtful to the people and to the communities who are thus targeted, 

but it is also ineffective and even counterproductive law enforcement. It’s sparked major 

riots in a number of European cities. It’s clearly eroding trust in law enforcement and 

alienating communities whose help is much needed both in addressing current terror 

threats to national security and in generally addressing public safety issues in communities everywhere. 

Yet, while we are quite familiar with this issue in the United States and in my 

original home country, the U.K., in most of continental Europe, the question of law 

enforcement discrimination or ethnic profiling has gone unrecognized until very recently. 

The Open Society Justice Initiative launched our project in this area in 2005 to try 

to address this gap. And it was indeed Rosalind’s case precisely that drew our attention 

to it, and made us realize that when looked at, there was a lot of evidence but not quan-
4 

titative data and very little research being done to understand the full dimensions and 

the dynamics of ethnic profiling. 

So our project works on three broad strategies. We advocate for new legal standards 

in policing policies, we conduct research to try to find out what is happening and draw 

greater public and political awareness to it. And we are also working with police in 

communities to identify and promote good practices in policing diverse communities where 

there is interest and the will to collaborate. 

Our research has produced some of the first quantitative data on police practices in 

a number of EU states, and I left some of our reports on the table outside. They’re also 

available on our Web site. 

The results where we’ve been able to generate quantitative data have been the same. 

Visible ethnic minorities are far more likely to be stopped and questioned by the police. 

We found rates that range from three times more likely—this is what’s called an odds 

ratio; if you are Roma, Black, Arab, whatever, you were three times more likely to be 

stopped than any White person—to rates up to 14 times more likely to be stopped. In fact, 

we did some research in Moscow where the peak disproportionality was 21 more times 

likely to be stopped if you were, in that case, non-Slav than if you were a Slavic Russian. 

These are extremely high disproportionalizing rates; much higher than we see in the 

United States or the U.K., where the top rate is about 8–to–1. 

Yet, where we’ve been able to get data on the outcome of these police actions, we’ve 

only one very, very specific exception: the ethnic minorities who have been no more likely 

to be detected offending than the majority group. In fact, in a number of cases, the ethnic 

minority groups are far less likely to be offending than the majority group. 

In addition to the pejorative and inaccurate stereotypes about minorities and 

offending, which underlie the use of this profiling by law enforcement, two further factors 

today are driving ethnic profiling in the European Union. The first is a reliance on stereotypes about religion and the propensity to violent extremism that underlies many European counterterror practices. 

In May last year, we published this report, ‘‘Ethnic Profiling in the European Union,’’ 

which presents evidence of the use of ethnic and religious profiles in a range of counterterror practices by police and intelligence services. We did field research in five countries 

for this report and used data that was already available in the U.K. 

We’ve identified a range of counterterror powers and tactics where law enforcement 

is relying on religious stereotypes and stereotypes about national origin more than they 

are on intelligence. From counterterrorist stops and searches, mass ID checks, raids on 

Muslim places of business and places of worship to data mining using profiles focused on 

religious and ethnic criteria to efforts to detect people who may be in the process of 

radicalization, or that is, becoming the so-called homegrown terrorist. 

We found evidence in all of these practices that they relied heavily on stereotypes 

about religion, about national origin and ethnicity, yet we found no evidence that these 

practices had helped to detect terrorists. 

Indeed, what is worrying and analytically I think kind of speaks for itself is the evidence that profiles, because they are predictable, are open to evasion and substitution. 

When we look today at this country and others, Jose Padilla, Richard Reid and now Jihad 

Jane are the manifestations of this possibility of evasion or substitution. People of different origin and appearance can simply be substituted for those who fit the profile. To 
5 

be effective, both ordinary policing and counterterrorism must be based on solid intelligence and not on prejudice. 

The second factor driving ethnic profiling in Europe that has increased in recent 

years is the aggressive enforcement of immigration controls. In some cases, politicians 

have actually set numeric targets for police to stop and search people, detain them and 

deport them. Unsurprisingly, the police response to this is to go out and stop and search 

visible minorities. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine what else they would do in response to 

such targets. 

In a Europe that is rapidly becoming increasingly diverse with second and thirdgeneration native-born peoples of immigrant origin, these policies are driven by outdated 

assumptions about ethnicity and nationality, and they impose a deeply unfair burden on 

those second and third generations, and indeed, on all legal immigrants into the EU. 

I will end—as we’ve been asked to be very brief and allow time for questions— 

[laughter]—by noting that although this is a disturbing picture, there has been increasing 

recognition of the issue amongst European nondiscrimination bodies and also to some 

degree, I don’t want to overstate, but within police forces. 

In our project, we focus not just on the research and litigation, but as I now said, 

have been working to identify and promote stronger norms and good practice in law 

enforcement. We’ve had partnerships with a number of law enforcement agencies and 

undertaken local pilot projects, and we were very pleased. 

We had particular success in one area, which clearly demonstrated that you can in 

fact address ethnic profiling in a manner that reduces disproportionate stops of ethnic 

minorities, but at the same time, increases the efficiency with which police use their 

powers. Basically, in this area, the hit rate on police stop-and-search—that is, the number 

of times they detected an offense—went up three times because they were thinking about 

who they were stopping and why, and not using stereotypes. 

So I will just wrap up by saying I think that much remains to be done. We need to 

still gain far greater recognition of the issue, we need to strengthen legal norms prohibiting discrimination in law enforcement and we need to broaden the knowledge and adoption of good practices. But we’re continuing to work in this area, we’re finding more and 

more partners and resonance on the ground in different European countries. And I look 

forward to answering any questions that you have on any of these topics. Thank you. 

Mr. DAKWAR. Let me first thank Mischa and the Commission. The Helsinki Commission has been instrumental in putting a spotlight on human rights violations in the 

United States, as well as abroad, and more importantly, connecting the dots between the 

different global trends in the OSCE region, including the United States and Canada as 

the two members outside the European continent. So I really would like to say thank you 

for the efforts, particularly around the role that the Helsinki Commission played around 

the U.S. review before the CERD Committee—the Committee on the Elimination of Racial 

Discrimination. 

The Helsinki Commission has issued a statement at a time when the Committee 

made the recommendations, and also later on, sponsored a resolution that was very 

important to provide support for the International Covention on the Elimination of All 

Forms of Racial Discrimination. 

It’s also important that the timing coincides with the International Day Against 

Racial Discrimination. And 50 years ago, with the Sharpeville Massacre, which basically 
6 

is the reason why the world every year on the 21st commemorates or remembers this day 

as the International Day Against Racial Discrimination. But 66 people were killed and 

hundreds were injured when the South African apartheid regime cracked down on peaceful protest at the time. 

So I think it does have this important context in how this massacre and gross violations of human rights in that context leads us to think about how do we continue to 

improve the situation while we know that much has happened since then, both in South 

Africa and in the United States, but we have to think of how much we have to go further 

in promoting human rights and ending racial discrimination. 

The historic fight against racial discrimination and racial bias in the United States 

continues and has perhaps become more challenging in the 21st Century. Although fewer 

de jure forms of discrimination remain in existence, de facto racial disparities continue 

to plague the United States and curtail the enjoyment of fundamental human rights by 

millions of people who belong to racial and ethnic minorities. 

Policies and practices that appear race neutral, but disproportionately restrict the 

rights of freedom of people of color are difficult to challenge, and establishing their 

discriminatory nature in the public consciousness and among policymakers is an uphill 

battle. Racial profiling by law enforcement and the correlating criminalizing of people of 

color provide one such example. Despite overwhelming evidence of its existence, often supported by official data, racial profiling continues to be prevalent and an egregious form 

of discrimination in the United States. 

Both the Democratic and Republican administrations have acknowledged that racial 

profiling is unconstitutional, social corrupting and counterproductive. Yet this unjustifiable practice remains a stain on American democracy and an affront to the promise of 

racial equality. 

Since September 11, 2001, new forms of racial profiling have affected a growing 

number of people of color in the United States, including members of Muslim, Arab, and 

South Asian communities. The Obama administration has inherited a shameful legacy of 

racial profiling, codified in official FBI guidelines in a notorious registration program that 

treats Arabs and Muslims as suspects and denies them the equal protection of the law, 

and even the presumption of innocence in the United States. 

As noted by Representative John Conyers, ‘‘Since September 11th, our Nation has 

engaged in a policy of institutionalized racial and ethnic profiling. If Dr. Martin Luther 

King were alive today, he would tell us we must not allow the horrific acts of terror our 

Nation has endured to slowly and subversively destroy the foundation of our democracy.’’ 

Equally troubling has been the Federal Government’s encouragement of unprecedented raids of immigrants, particularly Latino communities and workplaces, by local law 

enforcement in cooperation with Federal agencies. These policies have unjustly expanded 

the purview of an undermined basic trust in local enforcement, alienated immigrant 

communities and created an atmosphere of fear. 

According to recent reports by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights 

and the Southern Poverty Law Center, inflammatory anti-immigrant rhetoric has led to 

a dramatic increase in hate crimes against and racial profiling of Latinos. 

The report that the ACLU and Rights Working Group released last summer analyzed 

the prevalence of racial and ethnic profiling on the Federal, State and local levels. The 
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report found that racial profiling constitutes one of today’s most significant challenges to 

equality. 

While the U.S. Constitution prohibits racial profiling and the international community has defined racial profiling as a violation of human rights, profiling continues to 

impact millions of people in the African-American, Asian, Latino, South Asian, Arab and 

Muslim communities. 

All over the country, racial and ethnic minorities very often are investigated, stopped, 

frisked or searched based exclusively upon who they are and what they look like or what 

faith they practice without any identifiable evidence of illegal activity. The disproportionate rates at which racial minorities are stopped and searched, in addition to the often 

high concentrations of law enforcement in minority communities continues to have a 

tremendous impact on overrepresentation of minorities in the American criminal justice 

system. 

The report was submitted to the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial 

Discrimination as part of the followup process to the Committee review of the U.S. 

progress—or, U.S. implementation and compliance with the International Covention on 

the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination. Unfortunately, the report represents 

only the tip of the iceberg, and a variety of additional examples of the widespread nature 

of racial profiling no doubt exists. 

Last fold, in response to the report that we submitted and in response to the followup 

report that was submitted by the Bush administration literally in the last days of the 

Bush administration, the U.N. Racial Discrimination Committee sent a letter to the 

Obama administration expressing concern about the U.S. Government’s lack of progress 

in addressing racial discrimination. The Committee urged the United States to pass legislation prohibiting racial profiling and to end immigration programs that foster profiling. 

The Committee’s observations are still being studied by the Obama administration and 

no response was submitted to the Committee. 

As an Illinois State Senator, President Obama broadly championed State legislation 

to end racial profiling. And as a U.S. Senator, he cosponsored the End Racial Profiling 

Act, which was first introduced in 1998. He appointed Attorney General Eric Holder to 

head the Justice Department, and Attorney General Holder has stated that racial 

profiling is not good law enforcement—and he said that his Justice Department is committed to combating the practice of racial profiling. 

While the Obama administration has taken some steps to address racial profiling, 

such as an opening investigation into the anti-immigrant practices of Arizona’s Sherriff 

Arpaio, harmful policies from the previous administration still persist. 

For example, the Obama administration is continuing the Bush policy of allowing the 

Federal Government to aggressively transfer substantial responsibility of civil immigration laws to State and local enforcement, resulting in the increased profiling of people of 

color suspected of being undocumented immigrants. 

Most notorious among these initiatives is the 287(g) program, which has been criticized for encouraging the harassment of both immigrants and U.S. citizens, particularly 

in Latino communities, furthering the marginalization of already-vulnerable populations. 

Moreover, in the wake of recent events, such as the Fort Hood shootings and attacks 

and the failed Christmas Day bombing attempt, some have placed fear and bigotry over 

due process and basic human rights. 
8 

Earlier this year, the Obama administration announced that citizens from 14 nations, 

almost all predominantly Muslim countries with the exception of Cuba, will be subject to 

increased scrutiny and security measures. These measures will not make us safer and will 

only serve to further stigmatize broad groups of people. 

The report, which includes very detailed recommendations, calls for national legislation to end racial profiling, particularly with an emphasis on covering all kinds of 

profiling, and with no exception that would allow the Government to use them in order 

to profile people based on stereotyping. 

The report also comes up with a recommendation to review all policies and programs, 

and to replace them with more effective and fair policies that prohibit the use of race, 

or national origin or religious affiliation in the practice of racial profiling. And it also calls 

for the suspension and end of the anti-immigrant enforcement programs such as 287(g). 

The report also includes an important recommendation that deals with transforming 

the Civil Rights Commission into a civil and human rights Commission that will be able 

to monitor effectively human rights violations, particularly a practice like racial profiling. 

It also includes recommendations about anti-profiling trainings that are lacking in 

the law enforcement agencies, to bolster oversight and transparent complaint procedures, 

and more importantly, to end some of the—or to revisit some of the guidelines that have 

been issued by the former administration, including the Justice Department guidelines on 

the use of race in law enforcement agencies. Thank you. 

Dr. THOMPSON. Thank you. And actually, we’re going to begin, in a sense, the Q&A 

and discussion part of this briefing. As the moderator, I think I’ll take the privilege of 

asking some of the first questions. 

I actually wanted to start with Mrs. Williams in really asking for over a decade, in 

which you’ve, I think, been waiting for this situation to be addressed, what has been the 

response of the Spanish public? And I think, also, how have things either changed or not 

changed in specific regards to profiling in Spain? 

And I’ll preface that by saying that I visited Spain a couple of years ago now and 

actually spoke with a few NGOs that were charged with responding to persons who 

experienced racism, or hate crimes, et cetera; and the one thing that I was actually told 

during that time is, often times, people didn’t actually report incidents of discrimination— 

so whether it was housing, some type of violent hate crime that was committed against 

them, et cetera—and part of the reason was, they were afraid to actually go to the police 

to say anything, and it was in a direct relation to being racially profiled. And in some 

cases because people were undocumented migrants, they actually thought that they might 

then be arrested, or something of that nature. 

Ms. WILLIAMS. I think the first thing we should actually point out is that, No. 1, to 

answer the second part of your question first, there has been an increase. In the last 17 

years, or 18, almost, since I began this case until now, there has been an increase in racial 

profiling throughout the country. Not only in Madrid, not only in Valladolid where this 

happened to me, but in other areas of the country. 

Now, there has been an increase also in the multicultural aspect, the multiethnic 

aspect of the Spanish population. So in essence, there has been an increase in illegal 

aliens and illegal immigration. Nonetheless, as Rachel has pointed out, racial profiling 

does not solve the problem. You cannot find certain, say, segments of society through 

racial profiling. 
9 

In my case, most people in Spain, more or less, as I mentioned earlier, I was received 

and requested to meet one-on-one with high-level officials. And high-level meant the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation; the second in charge of the Ministry of the 

Interior, which is equivalent here to Homeland Security; and I received a letter from the 

Minister of Interior. 

In all three cases, there was an expression of an apology on the part of the Government, in the name of the Government. In all cases, I think all of them—well, I didn’t meet 

with the Minister of the Interior—but with the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, and the person in charge of U.N. Affairs, Director-General of U.N. Affairs for the 

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was more or less—they were all surprised at my perseverance; 

more or less surprised that we would proceed to do this for as long as it happened. 

I think the most important thing, as you mentioned, in Spain, people do not really 

understand their privilege as a citizen of a democratic society, nor their responsibility. 

Now, at one point, one attorney who’s a specialist in constitutional law—pointed out to 

me—he said, this happened to you in Spain as a Spanish citizen, but you’re proceeding 

to fight it as an American. 

Now, I think most people either give up because it is laborious, or it’s unpleasant, 

the actual incident was humiliating. No. 2, you really don’t know what to do. So in my 

case, I was actually able to ask a friend of mine who was a journalist, American Bureau 

Chief for Associated Press. When I told her what had happened, she suggested I go to 

a journalist in the area where the incident happened, who was a colleague of hers. 

This particular gentleman suggested that I go to the police station and file a complaint. When we went to the police station, the policeman who was in charge of taking 

complaints would not take it—would not take it. And at one point in time—as I mentioned 

to you earlier, my husband is Spanish, from Spain, and I never call him darling, even 

though he is—I turned to him, and I said the Spanish equivalent, well, darling, I guess 

we have to go and have lunch, and come back with a notary public to file a lawsuit. 

Because I knew according to Spanish law you can file a complaint, and as long as it’s 

notarized, it’s a legal document. 

So to answer your question—I’m doing it in a roundabout way—most people give up, 

most people don’t know what they can do and most people are afraid. Now, this is 

another—you might have seen in our bios—in my case I’m an artist—a practicing artist— 

and curator of photography. Therefore I work for myself. I don’t have to worry about 

maybe being fired from my job, or not being hired, or people in, say, a coffee shop at work 

not wanting to sit next to me and eat with me. So in reality, I’m more or less a free spirit, 

right? 

I’ve lived in Spain for 40 years. I’ve lived there under Franco. Spain is a very new— 

it’s only been a democracy a little bit more than 30 years—in this recent epoch of democracy for only 30 years. Therefore I felt that it was my duty and my privilege to be able 

to at least try to see if what had happened to me could more or less be at least fought. 

Does that answer your question? 

Dr. THOMPSON. You actually make me want to hear more. [Laughter.] But actually, 

I think we’ll go on to Ms. Neild for just a second and raise the question of what similarities and differences you have found between looking at Spain and other countries within 

Europe. First, this idea of if this happens to someone, how it is they even report the 

issue—you know, at the local level, and then, if you need to use the courts, how that actu-
10 

ally works and so forth. And I think later we can get a little bit more into specifically 

what you’ve done in terms of training and some other things. 

Ms. NEILD. Sure. I think one of the things to think about looking at these issues in 

Europe is the nature of migration. So you have some countries like France, England to 

a degree, the Netherlands and Germany that have had fairly large-scale migration for 

quite some time. There are some important differences between them in terms of how they 

nationalize people. Then you have other countries, and Spain and Italy really stand out 

at the moment, who have been historically net-sending countries, not receiving, but in the 

last 10 years, being on the Mediterranean coast and part of the EU, have really faced 

a massive influx, as Rosalind mentioned. 

And the numbers are quite staggering, actually. Frankly, I don’t actually recall them 

at the moment. It’s like 5 million people who’ve gone to Spain in the last decade. Some 

are going home now, but Spain has come from being a very homogenous country, to a very 

multiethnic country, at least in the large urban centers. 

And the response to this, unfortunately, and not entirely surprisingly, has been to 

some degree, racism and xenophobia, and really deeply ingrained prejudice in law enforcement. You hear a lot—oh, all of the crime is committed by immigrants. Well, there was 

actually crime in Spain before immigrants arrived, surprisingly enough—[laughter]—and 

it was in Spain where our data found much lower offending rates, actually, amongst 

migrants than the Spanish national population. 

The current situation has, as Rosalind notes, gotten considerably worse because of 

the economic crisis. Spain’s doing quite badly. But it’s really—but also because Zapatero, 

the President of Spain, had a fairly positive immigration policy, and actually opened 

nationalization to many people, faced a very strong political backlash against that and has 

now clamped down. So in Spain they’re actually calling on the police to round people up. 

However, they’re also doing this in France, where you don’t have a massive wave of 

recent migration, where you’ve got a very longstanding multiethnic society and a very 

deeply held notion about Frenchness that includes the overseas territories, as they call 

it. They’re also, with the right-wing Government this time, there are numeric targets to 

round up immigrants. 

So while there are sorts of national distinctions, there’s a broader dynamic of law 

enforcement discrimination driven by the three factors I mentioned: the stereotypes about 

who commits crime, anti-immigration and now counterterrorism. 

And you see the responses to this. We were probably most aware of the riots in 

France in November 2005. But these have actually—we don’t see it in our press because 

they’re not necessarily quite as big—but there are public disturbances in cities, in innercity areas, going on all across Europe. 

In Denmark, in a neighborhood in Copenhagen, just over a year ago there were riots 

with cars set on fire provoked by the police stopping and handcuffing an elderly Pakistani 

gentleman. I was just in Belgium, and the Belgian police were describing areas of Brussels—no, don’t laugh—as no-go areas for the police. And you hear this a great deal in 

countries all over the EU. 

Dr. THOMPSON. OK. Actually, I’ll just let you comment because I really had this 

feeling, as she was talking, that you were also visualizing some of your cases in cities, 

and so I’ll let you respond. And then I think we’ll go ahead and open it up to the audience. 
11 

Mr. DAKWAR. Sure, and I also want to acknowledge my colleague, Jumana Musa, 

who’s sitting here from the Rights Working Group that we worked together on, putting 

together a report. Obviously, what we are seeing—and it’s also a lot of information that 

was gathered by local organizations working on the state level—that this phenomenon of 

targeting and profiling immigrants, migrants, because they appear different—brown 

people, Black people, of course—that is something that is prevalent and is actually something that’s happening across the board. 

And what we have been raising concerns about are those kinds of programs where 

you have the national, Federal Government providing and deputizing local enforcement 

to engage in those sorts of policies of enforcing civil immigration laws; that historically 

has not been the traditional role of local law enforcement. 

So instead of maintaining the trust between communities at the local and state level, 

which is imperative and important for any successful law enforcement in the challenges 

of all kinds of crimes, and so on, you’re having diverted resources to actually breaching 

this kind of trust. And you’re seeing that there are people who are being set in a moment 

of siege. And I think a lot of people—thousands who demonstrated yesterday—have also 

sent that kind of message. 

It is also a matter of what’s the national—what is the Federal Government doing 

about that? And I think, as I said in my opening remarks, we have heard that this 

administration, the Obama administration, is very committed to fighting racial discrimination, and racial profiling in particular. We have seen two investigations launched in 

particular, looking at racial profiling—the Sheriff Arpaio in Arizona, and the East Haven, 

another investigation that was opened in December of last year. 

But yet, we have not seen the kinds of comprehensive review and revisiting the previous administration’s policies, and particularly, allowing law enforcement to use race and 

national origin in conducting their work. For example, the FBI guidelines from 2003— 

sorry, the Justice Department guidelines from 2003 that specifically addressed the issue 

of the use of race by law-enforcement agencies have many loopholes. And that actually 

carved out some sort of an exception for the use of racial profiling. 

For example, national origin, religious appearance or religious background would not 

be part of the prohibited basis for conducting law-enforcement work. It does not apply to 

local law enforcement. It doesn’t have an enforcement mechanism. It doesn’t have the 

enforceability in terms of knowing that the agencies or the officers who would be violating 

that will actually be punished for engaging in racial profiling. 

And then you have the more recent policies, particularly the FBI guidelines that were 

issued by former Attorney General Mukasey, which clearly gave the FBI kind of an 

authority to use race as long as it is not the only factor. Of course, race will not be the 

only factor in most of them, if not 99 percent of the times. So as long as race and national 

origin is not the only factor, that was given as a matter of an authority. So we are still 

hoping that the Obama administration and the attorney general will revisit those guidelines, and we know that there is a task force that is reviewing the DOJ, Department of 

Justice guidelines from 2003. 

Unfortunately, this process hasn’t been as meaningful and transparent as we would 

like it to be, to allow input from civil society, from NGOs, from all sorts of groups, based 

on the experience that we have over the last 7 to 8 years. But clearly we are seeing some 

movement; it’s not the movement that we would like to see in putting behind those kinds 
12 

of policies that really were counterproductive to what the administration wanted to 

achieve. 

And certainly the failed attack on Christmas Day had all those kinds of examples 

of showing that this is a case where it was not about profiling and stereotyping the entire 

community, whether people coming from Nigeria, or Muslims, or Arabs, but rather, 

looking at the individual behavior, and really engaging in old-fashioned policing work: 

Look at the criminal behavior; let’s see whether there are any suspicions there of any 

wrongdoing. But rather than sticking a profile to the entire community, whether people 

coming from a particular country—and then you have those situations where, now, 

organizations are evading those kinds of profiling. 

And you heard the Jihad Jane, or Jane Jihad example—even women who are White, 

not appearing in any way suspicious to law enforcement, have been involved in all sorts 

of things. So I think we have to look at those things in context, and I truly was thinking 

about all those examples when I read and when I heard the summary of the report—the 

OSI report. 

Dr. THOMPSON. I’ll say, if anyone wants to ask questions, you can use this microphone here. I’m actually going to bend it around and you can come to the front. And just 

to allow people to have time to come to the front, I’ll also ask Ms. Neild. You, I think, 

also mentioned in your recommendations in the report to focus on behavior, actually, as 

a mechanism for trying to find persons who may be a potential terrorist or committing 

crimes. And I was hoping you could talk a little bit about that and actually how or if that 

recommendation is being used in the countries that you’ve worked in. 

Ms. NEILD. We specifically call for a reliance on intelligence—both counterterrorism 

and policing, and in immigration, that good intelligence is the basis to identify behaviors 

that give grounds for reasonable suspicion that someone’s actually done something. 

I think I mentioned very briefly in my opening remarks that we did have one exception where we found a minority group that was offending at a greater rate. It was in the 

city of Girona in Catalonia, where we were working with the police to introduce stop 

forms. 

And the one group we found with a higher offending rate of the minority groups we 

were monitoring was Roma women—Romanian, actually. What was happening was there 

was a lot of shoplifting going on in a certain downtown area, the downtown area with 

lots of shops. And they had a pattern where in the afternoon women would go in these 

shops with large shopping bags lined with aluminum foil to evade the metal directors. 

And so the police were going in, and they would stop in and search—and women they 

found with long shopping bags, which looked like they met this criterion. Sadly, this 

appeared to have some ethnic degree of socialization, and they stopped a lot of Romanian 

women doing it. But what was interesting to me about that one was if you interrogated 

why the stop was happening and what was going on, it wasn’t per se because they were 

Romanian, it was because they were in a time, a place, based on a crime pattern in that 

time and place. And I think when we look at effective policing, that is what you’re going 

to see. 

The problem is a lot of policing isn’t actually necessarily done to catch people doing 

wrong things. It’s done to impose control on populations. It’s done to maintain a certain 

form of social order and it’s done to exert power. And to swap countries, I think that’s 

what we see happening a lot. 
13 

In France at the moment, there is a huge problem around Paris in the outlying areas 

with youth. Their unemployment rates are far, far higher. They’re stuck in these, sort of, 

basically ghettos. And there is just an appalling level of confrontation right now going on 

with the police. And it really needs addressing because using aggressive stop and search 

to say we’re in control is simply, sort of, throwing matches into a tinderbox, frankly. 

Really they need—they need decent jobs and they need education, but they also need the 

police to back off and to stop socializing more broadly this attitude that they’re all potential criminals and about to do something. 

On the behavior—so I’m a little bit cautious with the idea of behavioral profiling 

because I think it’s something where most of us are not clear as to what we’re talking 

about. There is a lot of interest in behavioral profiling and there’s a lot of marketing of 

behavioral profiling, a great deal of it coming out of Israel. 

Some of it is quite interesting. I actually was invited to observe a training in Schiphol 

airport—not in the airport where Abdulmutallab went through because he was in transit 

but in the area that surrounds Schiphol airport, there’s a train station. You can go right 

from the train station into the planes and that area is patrolled by the Dutch military 

police. 

And an Israeli private company was training them in behavioral profiling and we 

watched them for half a day and it was actually—it was fascinating. They asked me not 

to talk publicly in a lot of detail about what they were doing, but it really was very interesting and was very behaviorally focused. It was about looking for people who weren’t following normal patterns. 

That said, there’s other people who are out there talking about behavioral profiling 

and then they put these indicators and they’re things like wearing a heavy overcoat when 

it’s too hot, mumbling, wearing rosewater. For what you see is a lot of what these supposed behaviors are, are in fact proxies for religion. And it’s not about behavior at all. 

It’s another religious stereotype. 

So I think that before one sort of endorses behavioral profiling as somehow being 

better than ethnic or religious profiling, you need to know what the actual practice is and 

what the outcomes that it’s producing are, and be clear on that. 

Dr. THOMPSON. OK. And we have a question coming from the audience. 

[Off-side conversation.] 

Question: First, I apologize; I came in late and so I didn’t hear Ms. Rosalind’s presentation. I just wanted to followup on Dr. Thompson’s first question. How has the Government of Spain implemented the decision of the Human Rights Committee that they 

made—that the Committee made in 2009? What are they doing? What’s their reaction? 

Ms. WILLIAMS. Well, the reaction, I—the reaction has been that, as I mentioned, 

there were one-on-one meetings. In other words, to use my words, I—not publicly but in 

these private meetings, expressed my gratitude for solidarity. But I made a point of 

pointing out that in essence, the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations suggested that I be advanced—I be given a public apology. 

Why? A public apology is an expression on the part of the Government that they are 

not in favor of this. This has not happened. I have not received a public apology. There 

has been expression on the part of the Minister of Foreign Affairs in cooperation to see— 

to investigate reparations. Nothing has happened really. 
14 

And from the point of view of law, there are two laws now that will be—that are on 

the drawing board, that have been presented—two new laws that have been presented 

to the council of ministers. This was told to me by—in a, again, a one-on-one private 

meeting with the second in charge of the Ministry of the Interior, Homeland Security. 

And those laws in reality are—they could be effective, but it might take 4 or 5 

years—if they manage because they have to go through a certain bureaucratic process and 

be presented to the equivalent of Congress—in other words, the Parliament. And they 

have to pass. So it’s a nice gesture. There have been some very significant gestures, but 

in my opinion, nothing has really been concrete. In other words, we haven’t arrived at 

closure according to what the Committee has suggested. Rachel, you can help me or you 

think you agree with what I’m more or less saying? 

So I think perhaps it was a very heady experience on my part. But at the same time, 

I was told that—by the person in charge in the—of U.N. Affairs within the Ministry of 

Foreign Affairs that he had gone as far as he could go and that I did receive the letter, 

which in essence was a two-page, very—very, very cordial, very polite letter from the Minister of the Interior with very explicit explanations of what the Spanish Government is 

doing. 

And I was told I could do whatever I would like with that letter. In other words, I 

could have a press conference that mentioned that. But as far as I’m concerned, I’m not 

in Spain to do the homework. This is the Government of Spain. I’m the citizen. 

Defending—asking the Government to defend my rights as a citizen. And as far as I’m 

concerned, right now, that has not been done. 

Question: I guess mine is a half comment/half question for comment. I mean, I think 

one of the things as you talk about the Obama administration’s policy, and our issue is 

that the Obama administration’s actions actually allow for so many of these programs 

that—these Federal programs that are encouraging racial profiling because the guidance, 

as you mentioned, does not include profiling based on religion, based on national origin 

and then has large exemptions for borders and national security. 

So that in many ways, those exceptions sort of swallow up the rule and allow programs that use state and local enforcement in immigration. They allow things like the 

TSA policy that targeted everyone with a turban, which has now turned into a bulky 

clothing policy which targets everyone with a turban and other religious clothing and 

things like that. 

And so I think—you know, and then you have the FBI guidelines which don’t even 

meet the very low bar of the DOJ guidance in terms of protections. And those are all 

things that are currently in place and not—at least the FBI guidelines—actively being 

looked at for change. 

And so we find that extremely problematic, but what I would like to get some discussion on is some of the discourse we’ve seen recently by the Government when you get to 

things like behavioral profiling and things like that is who it applies to. And I say that 

because in terms of where many of these things come in, when you start to criminalize 

immigrants and you start to talk terrorism—and we saw recently the man who flew the 

plane into the IRS building copied that and you know, saying that violence is the only 

answer and was politically motivated. We saw the man who went to the Pentagon and 

shot a couple of the guards and they were both treated as not terrorism; that this was 
15 

somebody who was an isolated actor, they were—I don’t know, mentally ill; all the list 

of things that were not terrorism. 

And so what that appears on its face is that the definition of terrorism then is no 

longer about the act, but it’s about the actor. And so I would love it if you could sort of 

encounter that and how the, sort of, criminal and terrorism narratives plays into who the 

actor is when acts get described and how that then sort of affects the larger question. 

Mr. DAKWAR. I think in this debate and this discussion about what is permissible law 

enforcement action and what is not, I mean, there is also the politics of this issue that 

influences everything that happens. And when you start to see people taking it into the 

realm of fear-mongering, this is when it becomes really much more difficult to conduct 

constructive and open debate and discussion about what is permissible and what is not 

permissible. 

Just to give an example of how that is really kind of the—when you have a certain 

enemy—concrete enemy that you are fighting, it becomes—that’s the argument, well, it 

becomes a little easier to tackle or to deal with. When you don’t have a specified enemy, 

then it becomes a lot more difficult. It will be isolated, individual cases. 

And that is why we see it in a lot of—it’s easier for—you know, in many ways, it’s 

not only a U.S. space; it’s something that happens in many other countries—is to stereotype and to categorize and stigmatize and victimize one large group of people rather than 

doing the more difficult but more effective way of looking at—and when I say individual 

behavior, not looking at behavioral profiling, but I was more alluding to looking at individualized kinds of suspicions, rather than group-based suspicions, based on cultural appearances, cultural traditions or behaviors and so on. 

So I think that that’s what it’s really getting us to, which is that you have the easiest 

way to react to those kinds of actions, saying, look, it’s all the people who would practice 

religion would likely to commit an act of terror or act of violence. And so instead of really 

focusing on those small group of individuals that may have the potential of doing that, 

let’s just go and against the entire group of people who practice religion or practice Islam 

and, for that matter, they are the ones who are the enemy and potentially the ones who 

are going to do that. 

And so they have—you have really entered into a realm which is very dangerous in 

labeling people and putting borders around them, alienating them, making them feel that 

they are not trusted, no matter what. Whether you are a citizen or not citizen, you are 

White or Black, your religious affiliation would make—will speak on your behalf and you 

don’t have even the presumption of innocence at any state of the law. So that’s one of 

the things that—it’s in the act. 

The other thing is that the vagueness of the policies when you have, you know, 

what’s the definition of terrorism. I’m sure many of you have looked at that in different 

directions. You have—you know, when you create a certain broad definition of what is terrorism, what is not terrorism and how does that fit into people’s action. It creates another 

layer, so it’s easier to paint in a broad brush the entire population rather than specifically 

addressing the—again, on individual level those kinds of suspicions. 

The FBI guidelines that Joanna mentioned briefly, have a problem as they do create 

a space for FBI agents to take into account things that are really based on stereotype and 

stereotypes. That is including some of the cultural things, looking at the domain—you 

need to know your domain—and those kinds of things. 
16 

This is something that does not necessarily make for effective law enforcement and 

intelligence gathering, because in a lot of the situations, you will end up getting bad intelligence if you are going after the group. You are not getting any kind of cooperation 

between the communities that are vulnerable and they will see—they will feel that they 

are under siege. So it is counterproductive in many ways. 

And it also works—ends up playing into the hands of those who are aiming to inflict 

fear and terrorism among societies and communities when they see that there is already 

a disconnection and there’s no trust between the communities and the Government that 

is supposed to be able to treat them equally and without discrimination. 

Ms. NEILD. I think this is one thing where—one level and sort of some of the political 

rhetoric some EU countries are a little bad at and it’s actually because they’ve had a lot 

longer experience of domestic terrorism. So you’ve had red terrorism in Italy and Germany. You’ve had Basque ETA ongoing issues. You’ve got the Corsicans, there’s the Irish, 

there are violent right-wing neo-Nazi groups. There are some strange and quite violent 

animal activists. 

And there’s a certain amount of rhetoric and I’ll use the term rhetoric advisedly, I 

think, but sort of, saying, no, no, we talk about violent extremists; we don’t talk about 

Muslim terrorists. That said, however, when one goes in and looks at the thrust of policies 

and looks at a lot of the new initiatives that are being undertaken, they are very clearly 

and strongly targeting Muslims. 

If you look at the actual number of acts of terrorism—and Europol does an annual 

report which details attempts and acts—there are hundreds every year. And almost none 

of them are Muslim, are Jihad—shouldn’t the use word Jihad—are al-Qaida-inspired, I 

would say. But there is—and again, of course, because Europe has got a large Muslim 

community—Muslim communities, many. It’s the fastest growing religion in Europe. 

There is a great deal of concern about this idea of the homegrown terrorists. 

And the Dutch, because of Theo van Gogh being killed by Mohammed Bouyeri, 

started very early on with this idea that you could somehow identify people in this process 

of radicalization. We describe some of their policies in this book. They came up with these 

criteria, which include things very similar to the ‘‘behavioral profiling,’’ but—people suddenly growing beards or refusing to shake hands with women, and so on and calling on 

all sorts of social services to report people where they saw these behaviors going on to 

the authorities to then intervene. They weren’t necessarily immediately arrested; they 

were sometimes offered counseling and other things, but it’s just so obviously targeting 

certain visible manifestations of religious practice. 

And just for starters, this is wrong. They haven’t caught anyone through any of these 

things and if you look at what’s going on in Europe, you see a large number of White 

converts involved in those very few acts that have taken place. But there’s an interesting 

study also in a Dutch institute which said, well, you know, we’ve looked at—identified 

terrorists—I think they had something like 260 different individuals who’d been under 

suspicion or arrested—I’m not sure what the threshold criteria was to include them—and 

he said, yes, there’s a profile. It’s so big it includes half the Muslim men in Europe. This 

is completely useless for law enforcement. You are going to waste a vast amount of time 

and resources that you ought to be using to try to really identify the genuine threats 

against us. One critical way—probably the most critical way you identify those genuine 

threats—is by working with communities. But that does not mean instrumentalizing those 

communities and simply seeing them as informants to the police. 
17 

And this is another one of the problems I think with the initiatives that are going 

now. A lot of Muslim communities, like the South Asian community that has traditionally 

had lower offending rates. They’ve been very, you know, hard-working, good citizens, dadi-da. Now, suddenly the police are fascinated by South Asian, especially Pakistani-origin 

citizens in the U.K. and they’re running in and there’s a huge program called ‘‘Prevent.’’ 

It’s offering money for different kinds of programs. These communities know exactly why 

that’s all there and going on. And it’s a very one-sided dialogue. 

And although not all of it is necessarily intentionally or money for after-school programs for kids—that’s fine. But it’s not being done on the basis of a conversation about 

who gets it, what gets done and why suddenly are Muslims—and just we Muslims in this 

community—getting it. And that can be deeply divisive within local communities in different places. So I really think that in the United States there’s a growing concern going 

on here now in the wake of Fort Hood and Jihad Jane. 

So it’s an important time to look at some of these dynamics and some of these discussions coming out of Europe and try to learn some of the lessons and not make the same 

mistakes. I’m not, frankly, enormously optimistic about that. The NYPD has already put 

out a big report on radicalization, which is not good. I believe the LAPD proposed to map 

potential radicalization, which basically meant mapping every mosque and where the 

Muslims lived. That’s not the right approach. 

There needs to be some frankness and some honesty and law enforcement. I think, 

in these dialogues, if they’re going to be good dialogues and they’re going to really build 

trust, have to be willing to hear criticism. You can’t just go in and expect people to inform 

on you when that community feels victimized or feels that they’re being pointed at as the 

threat to society when they actually have been living, suffering the impact of a lot of this 

targeting. So I think there needs to be some room for a little cathartic outlet in order to 

get working. 

But it does work. I mean, we’ve talked to communities and we’ve talked to police in 

areas where they’ve really engaged with this, and information is given. You won’t know 

about it publicly, because it’s still really difficult, within a community, to inform on other 

community members. It’s difficult in any community. It’s nothing to do with your religion. 

So on the whole, that’s not going to go public unless it has to in a court trial, but information is given, and it’s invaluable and we need it. And we need to create the environment 

that facilitates it. 

Dr. THOMPSON. I was hoping that each of you could briefly, I think, just speak to the 

issue of—the role that you feel that international courts and organizations actually play 

in this process. I find it quite interesting, Ms. Williams, that you, in a sense, didn’t give 

up when you received repeated innocence feedback, that your claim was—that innocence 

was justified within Spain. 

And I also find it interesting that Rachel, and Jamil as well, that you all have 

attempted to access different international organizations, whether it’s the EU, whether it’s 

the United Nations, whether it’s the OSCE, et cetera. What is it you feel that you’re able 

to gain within these international spaces and how you do feel that translates back to the 

specific countries that you’re working in? And if we start with Ms. Williams, that will—— 

Ms. WILLIAMS. I think the most important thing is communication, on one level— 

communication among the different organizations that are dealing with this type of situation. And in our case, in Spain, we did receive ample coverage in the media. In other 
18 

words, there were front-page articles in the Spain’s most important newspaper on more 

than one occasion, television coverage with interviews, et cetera, on a national level, et 

cetera—television and radio. 

That’s one thing I think should be done. Another—and we haven’t been able to do 

it yet—is to advance more to opinion—in other words, in more or less mass-distributed 

forums, magazines, et cetera, that there could be actual in-depth articles that do explain 

what is happening in different areas of the world, as well as on both sides of the Atlantic, 

for example. 

Another thing that I mentioned the other day, when we had a similar meeting in 

New York at Open Society was the importance of education, from my point of view as 

a citizen. I’m not an expert, as my two colleagues are here, but as a citizen, I do believe 

that it’s very important for students, and starting with children through teenagers 

through university, to actually know, learn—in this case, in Spain for example, because 

that’s my only experience, to understand the constitution, what it means, what their privileges are and what their rights are, and what their responsibilities are. I think that is 

very, very important at all levels and constantly. 

Mr. DAKWAR. As a major civil liberties and legal organization in the United States, 

the ACLU has always looked at international forums as complementary forums or places 

to raise some of these things that we deeply believe in and concerned about policies. Of 

course, we would, first and foremost, pursue the domestic, national forums, whether the 

judicial, whether—most of the time, litigate—but we also realize that there are certain 

areas where you don’t have much success in getting a remedy or recourse for—to change 

policy. 

So we do, of course, engage in the other traditional ways of advocacy—legislative 

advocacy and otherwise. But it’s also—we thought that there’s also a benefit in using 

international forums, and in using international human rights framework, in particular, 

to engage the Government—U.S. Government on a lot of the issues where we were not 

successful on a domestic level. 

So we have been using the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to bring 

petitions, based on behalf of individuals, where we exhausted domestic remedies—where 

the Supreme Court either rejected our lawsuit or our appeal. Or, for example, on behalf 

of Khalid El-Masri—a German national who was victim of rendition program—he filed a 

lawsuit against the CIA. 

That lawsuit was dismissed by the lower courts and the Supreme Court did not grant 

an appeal. And therefore, the only place for him to get his day in court, to get himself 

heard by some sort of a forum was the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights. 

Where the U.S. engages, you know, you’d be able to bring that same similar arguments 

that you made, but with sometimes a more advantageous forum, because international 

forums have developed based on the national domestic experiences of different democracies, different legal regimes. 

So we do use that as an effective was to inform U.S. Government policies on a 

number of areas where U.S. law is out of step with the world, or behind in terms of providing access to justice, providing legal remedy or protecting rights and, both social/economic, as well as civil/political rights. And so we have used international bodies like the 

United Nations human rights mechanisms when the use was reviewed by those Commit-
19 

tees to assess progress that was made under the international human rights treaties that 

were ratified by the United States. 

So there is a level of commitment—not necessarily always legal commitment, legal 

obligation—but a sense of political, moral obligation to heed or to hear the recommendations and to take them into consideration. And racial profiling certainly is one of those 

issues that we felt strongly that, bringing them to international forum would only benefit—we would only benefit and the U.S. Government would only engage and use that as 

a way to see what’s happening in other countries in Europe, in the OSCE region, what’s 

happening in the Latin American and the Inter-American system. 

And that, in itself, I think, was helpful, both on the human level for individual victims of human rights violations, but also on the broader level of policymaking and 

changing things toward better and more effective solutions, and workable solutions. And 

my colleague mentioned what we often use in the human rights community—best practices. This is really, what are the good, positive policies that worked in other countries? 

There’s no reason we should not look at them. Actually, the U.S. Government engages 

in all sorts of best practices on national security issues, diplomatic issues and so on, so 

similarly, we, as a human rights movement, human rights community, would look at good 

policies, where they work to minimize damage, minimize human rights violations, and at 

the same time, allow the Government to take on an issue and to deal with a problem like 

terrorism, for example. So it’s really been a very important—I must say, on the individual 

level, last year, I maybe traveled the least. 

And there is a feeling that my trips—instead of going to Geneva and to Warsaw and 

to Brussels, I was more making the trip from New York to D.C., which is a very good 

sign. And I hope that that will continue. We’ll use the international when we really don’t 

have any other option for us here in the United States. 

Ms. NEILD. You’ve covered it. I mean, Governments are really sensitive to international criticism. It is a marvelous opportunity to get attention. I do think that international treaties and standards like this sort of express our common values, and point 

to this as, not a problem of a particular country, but a shared problem. And hopefully, 

we can look for shared solutions. 

One difference in Europe is that we do have the European Court of Human Rights, 

and its rule is binding. And member states are meant to bring their own legislation practice into accord with that. And they have three rulings that are relevant to ethnic 

profiling. We need to bring them a direct case that will really, kind of, get even tighter 

on some of these practices. But there’s a body of case law that’s interested and growing. 

And I would also just close by saying that I think that, as the OSCE High Commissioner for National Minorities and others already are doing, there’s a lot of work that can 

be done at the international level to bring both law enforcement and civil society together 

around positive measures to have a conversation, not to just feel shamed and defensive 

and kind of kick back, but to move forward. 

Dr. THOMPSON. Ms. Williams, if you had any closing remarks. I apologize for asking 

to come to the front but we are also recording this. 

Question: Thanks very much. I did have a few questions picking up on your last 

point. I wondered, had you given any consideration to pursuing your case through the 

European Court of Human Rights, given the fact that it does have this binding nature, 

which Rachel had mentioned? 
20 

And then I wondered—a question for the two of you, in a certain sense. One is, with 

the European Union and freer travel, sort of, you know, internal borders of the OSCE, 

I’m wondering, can you—if your experience has been—if you’ve traveled elsewhere in the 

European Union, and have you encountered any difficulties elsewhere in the European 

Union? 

And then, I wondered, have you followed trends as the expansion of the European 

Union, especially with workers coming from Eastern and Central Europe to—I know 

there’s a large population of construction workers in Portugal, and perhaps elsewhere in 

Spain and so forth—in terms of those kinds of discriminations, and how the EU, to the 

extent that it is trying to grapple with the fact of discrimination against other individuals 

from within the European Union. 

And then I wondered, if I could raise a question, did you talk about—some of your 

points lead to the question of data. And of course, as the Commission has been instrumental in trying to promote combating anti-Semitism, one of the difficulties that we’ve 

encountered is the great difficulty in terms of getting anything that comes to accuracy, 

in terms of the data. 

And it strikes me as a little odd, too, then because you’re in a certain sense, relying, 

in part, except for courageous individuals, like Ms. Williams, on who comes forward and 

say, I’m not going to go along with this—you’re dependent, to some extent, upon the law 

enforcement agencies themselves to keep accurate statistics, and statistics that do incorporate the types of ethnic background or racial background that you’re trying to build the 

case against. 

I guess, just drawing from one personal experience, trying to assist a victim of 

pickpocketing in Central Europe—this was before the expansion of the European Union— 

and when I accompanied this young woman to the police station, the very first question 

out of the police authority—and I wonder if you could address this—in terms of, sort of, 

leading and sort of, already prejudicing what the result might be, the very first question 

was, ‘‘was the person who picked this woman’s purse of this background?’’ 

So before we had got into any of the specifics, they had already concluded that, in 

all likelihood, a Roma was responsible for, in this particular instance. So I wondered if— 

those are a few issues that had come to mind during the course of your presentation. 

Ms. NEILD. Sorry, I have to leave for the airport, so the issue with Schengen is quite 

problematic, and particularly with some of the newer ascension countries—(inaudible)— 

not necessarily enjoy all of the—(inaudible)—protections. And we’re particularly preoccupied, at this time, with the treatment of Roma and deportations of Roma back to 

Romania from Italy. And even Frontex, the European border agency, has been involved 

in deportations that they have publicly recognized now had not been conducted as they 

should. 

Schengen includes, in article six, a specific nondiscrimination clause. And the question of what that means in practice, and what kind of training they get, is an important 

one. The European Fundamental Rights Agency is meant to be doing joint training with 

Schengen this year—I’m sorry, with Frontex—but I’m not quite sure what the status of 

that, or indeed, what the approach to the training is, because training can be a whole 

realm of things that have very different effects on the actual practice. 

Just on the law enforcement data, I mean, our problem with profiling is, we don’t 

have ethnic data, because in the wake of the Second World War, almost no European 
21 

countries outside of the U.K. would gather any ethnic data. And we don’t have law 

enforcement data, because very few countries, outside the U.K., give any law enforcement 

statistics. They give crime statistics, which include how many immigrants are in prison. 

So we’ve—I think that’s one of the things our research has sort of helped to do, is start 

to generate this. 

And we have introduced stop forms, and we’ve gotten law enforcement data through 

that. There are issues about how that can be manipulated, and so on, but I think that 

our stop forms have been reasonably reliable, because you do see a lot of 

disproportionality coming out of them. So if they are manipulating them, they’re not doing 

it as well as they should be. But that said, you can obviously do surveys, and there’s some 

survey data. And the Fundamental Rights Agency is doing a little of that. 

And then, if you are really dedicated and get the resources, you can do direct observational studies. And we did one of those in Paris, where we benchmarked the population 

in certain places to have a direct comparison of who was there, available to be stopped— 

what does that population look like in the Paris metro? And then we had observers who 

followed the police around for about 4 months with cell phones. 

If you have a piece of paper and you’re writing, they stop you. If you have a cell 

phone and you text, you’re completely invisible. [Laughter.] They would text in variables. 

So we put together the ethnic data on that, and that’s where we got a range of 

disproportionality that went up to 14 times more likely to be stopped, in some cases. So 

you can get the data, but it’s really resource-intensive at the moment. 

We need better systematic data gathering of ethnic statistics—not personalized data, 

which allows individuals to be tracked; just the statistics to see what’s going on. And how 

that happens, I think, is something that law enforcement agencies and the civil rights 

community in Europe needs to, kind of, belly up to the table and deal with that one, 

because there’s a lot of anxiety and reluctance about it still. 

Mr. DAKWAR. The only thing I would add—I think it very much answered the question, and I agree with all of what was said—I would just add that even under—there are 

some states, as you know, have data collection requirement under state racial profiling 

acts, or ending racial profiling acts on the state level. And this has been instrumental in 

trying to get information out about the police practices. 

I know in New York City, the NYPD—every year, the NYCLU receives this data and 

analyzes it and sees the patterns. And they’re still—based on that, they engage with the 

local—with the NYPD in this particular case. And even when, as you said, you can’t completely rely on law enforcement for this, you can start with something. There are some 

places where Freedom of Information Act requests have also produced a lot of information 

about police practices, particularly around the local enforcement of immigration laws, for 

example. 

I know in Texas, that’s been particularly instrumental in avoiding—or, when there 

was a loophole in the racial profiling act in Texas where, for example, Latino would not 

be considered as a race—a separate race. So El Paso, which is 80 percent Latino community—and the sheriff there was stopping people—it was not considered racial profiling 

because they were not even considered a different race, for that matter, which is absurd, 

to look at it this way. So there are ways to go around the manipulation of this. 

And last, I would just add the complaint mechanism oversight—when you have independent complaint mechanism on police conduct, law enforcement, you encourage those 
22 

kinds of complaints to come forward, and ensure that they are going to be receiving the 

right attention, and with an independent process of reviewing those complaints, rather 

than depending on the same police to police itself. 

Dr. THOMPSON. And I think there was a question about the European courts. 

Ms. WILLIAMS. Actually, after the case was thrown out of the last court—the tribunal 

court—constitutional court—in Spain, there were two options. One could have been, at 

that particular time, in 2001, the European court—you know, human rights court. That, 

you have a deadline of 6 months to present the case to that court. Therefore, that option 

is no—wasn’t open to me when Open Society took it over in 2004. Between 2004 and 2006, 

they prepared the case. And it’s not an option now. And I don’t remember your question 

for me. 

Question: My second question was if you’ve encountered difficulties elsewhere in the 

European Union? 

Ms. WILLIAMS. No, no, I haven’t. I travel frequently to France and, from time to time, 

Italy, and I haven’t. Now, I have in Spain. In other words, in Spain—I haven’t been 

stopped, as I was before, but I have been stopped while driving, but not necessarily questioned for a traffic, say, violation or infraction. And at one point, we actually did ask the 

policeman if I were being stopped—[laughter]—because of the color of my skin. He said 

oh, no, no, no. Oh no, not at all. 

Question: Did he give another reason? 

Ms. WILLIAMS. No, no, no. So I have been stopped two other times, but this—in this 

case, it was not on foot; it was while driving a car. 

Dr. THOMPSON. Now, on that note, I will thank everyone for coming and joining us 

today. I think you hear from the panel that this is an issue that we’re going to have to 

continue to look at and discuss some common solutions and best practices that might actually work in North America, as well as abroad. So we actually look forward to continuing 

that discussion with you, and hopefully, we’ll be able to welcome Ms. Williams back for 

the next conversation. So thank you all for participating today. 

Ms. WILLIAMS. Thank you. 

Mr. DAKWAR. Thank you. 

Ms. NEILD. Thank you. [Applause.] 

[Whereupon at 3:30 p.m., the briefing ended.] 
23 

A P P E N D I X 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE BRIEFING RECORD BY 

RACHEL NEILD 

SUMMARY OF THE CASE OF Rosalind Williams Lecraft v. Spain 

Rosalind Williams was stopped by a police officer on the platform of the station in 

Valladolid, Spain, and told to produce her identity documents. When asked why she was 

the only person stopped, the police officer told her ‘‘It’s because you’re Black.’’ Williams 

complained of her treatment to the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations 

which, in June 2009, found that it was unlawful discrimination. 

FACTS

In the afternoon of December 6, 1992, Rosalind Williams arrived at the Valladolid 

Campo Grande railway station on a train coming from Madrid. She was with her husband, Federico Augustin Calabuig, and their son Ivan Calabuig-Paris. Moments after they 

disembarked from the train, a National Police (Policia Nacional) officer approached Williams and asked her to produce her identity document (the Documento Nacional de 

Identificacio ́n or DNI). The police officer did not ask her husband, son, or any other passengers on the platform for their identity documents. 

Williams and her husband asked the reason for the identity check. The officer replied 

that he was obligated to check the identity of persons who ‘‘looked like her,’’ adding that 

‘‘many of them are illegal immigrants.’’ He went on to explain that in carrying out the 

identity check, he was obeying an order of the Ministry of the Interior that called on 

National Police officers to conduct identity checks, in particular, of ‘‘persons of color.’’ Williams produced her identity document, and took the number of his badge. 

LEGAL PROCEEDINGS

The following day Williams lodged a complaint with the National Police Headquarters in Valladolid (Jefatura Superior de Policia). The proceedings were dismissed at 

the pretrial stage after the after the court found that no crime had been committed. 

In February 1993, Williams submitted a complaint to the Ministry of the Interior 

(Ministerio del Interior Registro General), challenging the apparent order of the ministry 

that called on National Police officers to target persons of color for identity checks and 

requesting that the General Administration of the State take for the unlawful actions of 

the Ministry of the Interior. The complaint argued that the practice of stopping people 

based on their race or ethnicity when carrying out identity checks contravened well-established Spanish and European legal norms against discrimination, arbitrary detention, and 

protecting freedom of movement. She also submitted medical documents as to the effect 

of the incident on her. The ministry rejected the complaint, and so Williams appealed to 

the National Court (Audiencia Nacional Sala de lo Contencioso-Administrativo). 

The National Court dismissed the appeal on November 29, 1996, finding that there 

was an obligation to produce identity documents and that police were authorized to 
24 

demand identification from foreigners. Because Williams belonged to the ‘‘black race’’ she 

was therefore more likely to be a foreigner. 

SPANISH CONSTITUTIONAL COURT

Williams appealed to the Spanish Constitutional Court, alleging a violation of the 

prohibition of discrimination in Article 14 of the Spanish Constitution and of the European Convention on Human Rights. In a six-to-one decision issued on January 29, 2001, 

the Constitutional Court rejected her complaint, finding that a person’s racial or ethnic 

identity is a legitimate indicator of nationality, and to refer to the race of a person for 

a ‘‘descriptive’’ manner is not per se discriminatory, as ‘‘specific physical or ethnic 

characteristics can be taken into consideration as reasonably indicative of the national 

origin of the person who has them.’’ The court explained: 

[T]he police action used the racial criterion as merely indicative of a greater probability that the interested party was not Spanish. None of the circumstances that occurred 

in said intervention indicates that the conduct of the acting National Police officer was 

guided by racial prejudice or special bias against the members of a specific ethnic group, 

as alleged in the complaint. Thus, the police action took place in a place of travelers’ 

transit, a railway station, in which, on the one hand, it is not illogical to think that there 

is a greater probability than in other places that persons who are selectively asked for 

identification may be foreigners; moreover, the inconveniences that any request for identification generates are minor and also reasonably assumable as burdens inherent to social 

life. 

On behalf of Williams, the Open Society Justice Initiative filed a complaint to the 

Human Rights Committee of the United Nations together with Women’s Link Worldwide 

and SOS-Racismo Madrid. 

ARGUMENTS

The communication to the Human Rights Committee argued that the treatment of 

Williams violated various provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political 

Rights (ICCPR). 

• Jus Cogens. The prohibition against racial discrimination is recognized in all 

major international and regional human rights instrument and is a jus cogens norm of 

international law, creating obligation on states to ensure it does not occur, in accordance 

with Art.26 ICCPR. 

• Indirect and Direct. International law prohibits both direct and indirect discrimination, as does the European Union Race Directive. 

• Public Officials. Police officers are agents of the state and there is a positive 

obligation on the state to ensure they do not discriminate, through legislation where necessary. 

• Racial Profiling. The law enforcement practice of relying on generalizations about 

race, ethnicity, or national origin rather than specific objectively identified evidence that 

would link perpetrators to a crime is a form of racial discrimination that violates human 

rights law. 
25 

• Finding. On June 30, 2009, the UN Human Rights Committee published its views 

in which it considered that there had been a violation of the ICCPR. 

ADMISSIBILITY

The Spanish Government had argued that Williams had delayed too long in making 

her submission to the UN Human Rights Committee. Williams replied that she was not 

able to do so earlier due to the emotional stress and financial cost of nine years of litigation in Spain. Only when Williams was able to find free legal assistance from an NGO 

was she able to continue the case. The Committee noted the difficulty of obtaining legal 

aid and found no abuse (at para. 6.3). 

MERITS

The comittee gave its views on the question of whether racial profiling was a 

discriminatory practice. 

7.2 The Committee believes that it is generally legitimate to carry out identity checks 

for the purposes of protecting public safety and crime prevention or to control illegal 

immigration. However, when the authorities carry out these checks, the physical or ethnic 

characteristics of the persons targeted should not be considered as indicative of their possibly illegal situation in the country. Nor should identity checks be carried out so that 

only people with certain physical characteristics or ethnic backgrounds are targeted. This 

would not only adversely affect the dignity of those affected, but also contribute to the 

spread of xenophobic attitudes among the general population; it would also be inconsistent 

with an effective policy to combat racial discrimination. 

7.4. In this case, it appears that this was a case of a general identity check. The petitioner states that no one else around her was the target of a similar check and that the 

police officer that intercepted her alluded to her physical traits to explain why he asked 

her, and not others around her, to show her identity documents...[T]he Committee can 

only conclude that the petitioner was singled out only because of her racial characteristics, 

and this was the decisive factors for suspecting unlawful conduct. 

8. Based on the foregoing, the Human Rights Committee considers that the facts 

before it reveal a violation of Article 26, read together with Article 2, paragraph 3 of the 

Covenant. 

IMPLEMENTATION

The UN Human Rights Committee concluded that the law should be changed, that 

there should be a public apology to Williams, and that Spain must ‘‘take all necessary 

measures to prevent its officials from committing acts as in the present case.’’ (at para. 

9) The Committee also requested that the State party publish the opinion of the Committee and gave Spain until the end of December 2009 to implement the opinion (at para. 

10). 
26 

CURRENT STATUS

The Human Rights Committee expressed the view that the correct remedy for the 

violation of the Covenant was for there to be a public apology. This reflects a growing 

body of human rights law which recognizes that it is necessary for there to be a public 

aspect to an apology, particularly where the treatment complained of contained an element of humiliation or degradation. Rosalind Williams Lecraft received apologies on 

behalf of the Spanish state in a face-to-face meeting with Minister of Foreign Affairs and 

Cooperation Miguel Angel Moratinos on 11 November 2009, and again in written form in 

a letter addressed to her by Minister of Interior Alfredo Perez Rubacalba on 20 January 

2010. But to date, there has no been no public apology by the government of Spain. While 

welcoming the direct expressions of regret, an apology made behind closed doors cannot 

be considered sufficient to remedy the human rights violation attributed to Spain by the 

Committee. This public element of the apology is necessary in order to acknowledge the 

admission of fault and to ensure that any expression of regret is genuine. The Spanish 

government should move to acknowledge and publish their responsibility in this matter 

in a truly public forum that will be accessible to members of Spain’s police and security 

forces 

The Human Rights Committee expressed the view that in order to remedy the violation of the Covenant the government of Spain must take all necessary steps to ensure that 

its officials do not repeat the kind of acts observed in this case. Specifically, the government should undertake the following measures immediately: 

Firstly, amend the provisions that regulate police powers to conduct identity checks 

under relevant laws to make clear that race, ethnicity, and/or physical characteristics may 

not be the basis for decisions about which person(s) to stop for an identity checks, except 

when they form part of a specific suspect description or derive from specific and reliable 

intelligence; and 

Secondly, instruct all police forces to issue operational guidance manuals on these 

modifications of identity check powers, which shall provide clear and practical instructions 

for police officers on the formulation of suspicion and identify situations where factors 

such as race, ethnicity and other physical characteristics can be taken into account and 

when they can not. 

In a letter to counsel dated 13 January 2010, the Minister of Justice notes that in 

the seventeen years since Ms. Williams Lecraft was stopped for an police identity check 

solely on the basis of her skin color, Spain has become a more multi-ethnic society, and 

that police forces have subsequently received human rights training that focuses on diversity, equal treatment, and the prohibition of discrimination on the basis of racism, 

national origin, religion and other grounds. In his letter to Ms. Williams Lecraft dated 

30 January 2010, the Minister of Interior states that this ongoing training effort, together 

with the government’s commitment to prosecute police misconduct of all kind, constitute 

sufficient measures to prevent similar discriminatory police identity checks from occurring 

in the present and thus give due effect to the views of the Committee. 

While recognizing the importance of the work that the Spanish government is undertaking with governmental agencies and elected representatives to develop the 

anteproyectos de las nuevas Leyes de Personal del Cuerpo Nacional de Policia y de la 

Guardia Civil is indeed important. However, it is not sufficient to address the current 
27 

1Ministerio de Interior, Direccio ́n General de la Policia y de la Guardia Civil, Comisarı ́a General de 

Extranjerı ́a y Forenteras, Secretaria General Servicio de Recursos e Informes, Circular nu ́m. 1/2010. 2Daniel Ayllo ́n, ‘‘Un informe denuncia agujeros legales en las expulsiones expre ́s,’’ Pu ́blico.es, February 

11, 2009; Sindicator Unificado de Policı ́a, Comisio ́n Ejecutiva Nacional, La Circular sobre extranjerı ́a vulnera 

ley y los derechos: La recurrira ́ por atentar contra derechos de los inmigrantes y poner en riesgo a los policı ́as, 

February 9, 2010, available at http://www.sup.es. 

practice of ethnic profiling across Spain. The Spanish government must take specific 

action in the present to stem its prevalence. 

Although the ongoing training of police officers is to be commended, the provision of 

general human rights and diversity training is not sufficient to prevent ongoing ethnic 

profiling practices. In order for law enforcement officers to understand how and when they 

may be relying explicitly—or not—on negative ethnic stereotypes, they need specific 

training on this practice. Given the nature of many manifestations of ethnic profiling as 

a form of indirect discrimination, it is essential to address the specific policies, powers and 

practices that are leading to disproportionate and discriminatory outcomes. This is best 

achieved through training that explains applicable legal standards and provides practical 

examples of correct and incorrect use of those powers, and complemented by supervision 

that assures that officers are applying principles learned in training in their daily operational practice. Training should discuss ethnic profiling explicitly, and address both the 

quality of encounters and quantitative disproportionality. 

Furthermore, although several police forces throughout Spain have adopted innovative measures to identify, monitor and address ethnic profiling in their jurisdictions, this 

discriminatory practice remains a problem throughout Spain. This is especially true in the 

context of immigration control, a law enforcement area with which the UN Human Rights 

Committee was particularly concerned. For example, in the past year it has been revealed 

that local police in Madrid received directives to target specific nationalities for immigration roundups—orders that omitted any instruction to abstain from targeting persons on 

the basis of their specific physical or ethnic characteristics. More recently, a January 2010 

circular issued by the Comisaria General de Extranjeria y Fronteras effectively encouraged the practice of carrying out massive and indiscriminate police identity checks in 

public places for the purposes of immigration control.1 These wide-scale, general operations raise legitimate concerns that many persons are being targeted for stops and even 

detentions on the basis of what they look like, in direct contradiction of the Committee’s 

views.2 It would be impossible for the police to implement these orders without relying 

on ethnic/racial characteristics. 

ROSALIND WILLIAMS-LECRAFT TIMELINE

December 6, 1992. Williams stopped in Valladolid Railway Station. 

December 7, 1992. Complaint filed with National Police Headquarters, later rejected. 

February 15, 1993. Complaint filed with Ministry of the Interior, later rejected. 

April 6, 1994. Appeal filed with the National Court. 

November 29, 1996. National Court rejects appeal. 

October 5, 1998. Appeal to Constitutional Court is registered. 

January 29, 2001. Constitutional Court rejects appeal. 

September 11, 2006. Communication submitted to the UN Human Rights Committee. 
28 

June 30, 2009. Views of the Human Rights Committee published. 

December 31, 2009. Deadline for Government of Spain to make a public apology. 

June 30, 2009 UN Human Rights Committee finds that there had been a violation 

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