A/HRC/15/53 United States of America. Reportedly, a repeatedly occurring process for some Sikh individuals — including for those who have no criminal records and are citizens of the United States of America — was described as follows: upon disembarking the plane, the targeted individual is identified and escorted by two officers of the Department of Homeland Security. The officers take the individual through immigration and then onward to baggage claim. After the luggage is picked up, the individual is taken to a private location where the baggage and the person is searched, all documentation with the individual is photocopied, and the individual’s phone is taken and information from the phone stored by the officers. The individual is questioned in detail about their trip, and then the individual is released. Throughout the entire experience, officers allegedly treat the individual rudely, asking pointed questions in a manner that is threatening as if the person is a suspect, and the experience lasts approximately two hours. According to the 2009 Global Sikh Civil Rights Report, Sikhs travelling to Pakistan on pilgrimage visas to visit the birthplace of Guru Nanak Sahib Ji and other historical places of worship for short visits reported facing similar problems even though their visas to Pakistan reflected very short visits. 41. In her report on her 2009 visit to Canada (A/HRC/13/23/Add.2), Gay McDougall, independent expert on minority issues, addressed the question of religious and ethnic profiling. Accordingly, persons belonging to African Canadian, Muslim, Arab and Latino communities reported feeling subject to unjustified police surveillance and experiencing negative interactions with the police, which they considered to be consistent with a practice of ethnic profiling. For instance, the independent expert met an individual who had been detained for considerable periods under security certificate provisions. He described his treatment as discriminatory and his detention as based only upon his profile as a man of Arab ethnicity. Numerous civil society groups claim the powers authorized under the 2001 Immigration and Refugee Protection Act were used indiscriminately, are targeted against Muslims and Arabs, resulting in discriminatory impact, and serve to reinforce negative stereotypes. 42. Among the key findings of the 2009 European Union Minorities and Discrimination Survey, “the survey found very high levels of police stops among minority groups that were interviewed. On average, the proportion of those who were stopped by the police at least once in the 12 months prior to the survey interview was 33 per cent of all North Africans; 30 per cent of Roma; 27 per cent of Sub-Saharan Africans; 22 per cent of both Central and East European and former Yugoslavian respondents; 21 per cent of Turkish respondents; 20 per cent of Russian respondents … Looking at a breakdown of the results according to specific groups in Member States: very high rates of presumed ethnic profiling (over 20 per cent) were recorded for the Roma in Greece (39 per cent), North Africans in Spain (31 per cent), Sub-Saharan Africans in France (24 per cent), Roma in Hungary (24 per cent) and North Africans in Italy (21 per cent)”.5 (b) Observations by the Special Rapporteur on religious and ethnic profiling 43. The Special Rapporteur is concerned about reports that individuals may be regularly and in a discriminatory manner subjected to stop and searches, interrogations, document checks or arrests, for instance in the context of immigration or security controls, solely because of their perceived religious or ethnic affiliation. While he acknowledges that States are obliged to take effective measures in preventing and combating terrorist attacks and that profiling is, in principle, a permissible means of law enforcement activity, the Special 5 10 European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, “2009 European Union Minorities and Discrimination Survey” (EU-MIDIS, 2009), p. 17. Available from http://fra.europa.eu/fraWebsite/eumidis/eumidis_main_results_report_en.htm. GE.10-14999