A UNITED NATIONS General Assembly Distr. GENERAL A/HRC/4/26 29 January 2007 Original: ENGLISH HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL Fourth session Item 2 of the provisional agenda IMPLEMENTATION OF GENERAL ASSEMBLY RESOLUTION 60/251 OF 15 MARCH 2006 ENTITLED “HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL” Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, Martin Scheinin Summary Section I provides a summary of the activities of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism undertaken since 15 December 2005. The next two sections focus on two thematic issues that are of special interest to the mandate. Section II contains an analysis of “profiling” in the context of countering terrorism. The Special Rapporteur provides an explanation of the concept of terrorist profiling and an overview of the different contexts in which law-enforcement agencies have employed terrorist-profiling practices. He assesses the compliance of so-called terrorist-profiling practices with human rights standards and sets out permissible forms of terrorist profiling and possible alternatives to the reliance on terrorist profiles. Section III examines the issue of suicide attacks as a form of terrorism. The Special Rapporteur provides a survey of existing research on the phenomenon of suicide terrorism. He addresses “shoot-to-kill” policies and other similar attempts to evade existing international standards on the use of firearms by law-enforcement officials. The conclusions and recommendations regarding terrorist profiling and responses to suicide attacks as a form of terrorism are contained in section IV. GE.07-10507 (E) 090207