A/HRC/FMI/2015/1 or privacy-invasive police practices that may have an excessive impact on minority communities by reinforcing stigma and stereotypes of certain minority groups, thereby contributing to a vicious circle of tensions between police and minority communities and undermining intercommunity cohesion. 9. Session participants will analyse conditions that may lead authorities to be disproportionately suspicious of persons belonging to minorities or to select them for nominally “random” checks for reasons of a discriminatory and prejudicial character. Experiences of police disproportionately targeting individuals for identity checks or stopand-search operations or with other forms of coercive or privacy-invasive police powers purely on the basis of identity-based minority group characteristics rather than any credible suspicion that the individual in question involved in any illegal activity will be addressed. Increased general surveillance of members of a particular religious faith solely on the basis that some believers of the religion have engaged in terrorist or similar crimes will also be considered. 10. Participants will explore the role of all stakeholders in taking proactive steps to prevent law enforcement officers from engaging in profiling methods, including questioning, arrests and searches, based solely on the physical appearance of a person, or the person’s features or membership in a particular minority group. Participants will be encouraged to share positive experiences about measures that mitigate the disproportionate impact of discriminatory security operation practices on minorities and tactics that ensure the impartial and non-discriminatory application of the law and that ultimately create or preserve community cohesion and peaceful relations with the police, including by building an inclusive and responsive police service. 11. Participants will consider effective measures to prevent the excessive use of force, including lethal force, by police and how best to ensure full compliance with the requirements of proportionality and strict necessity in any use of force against persons belonging to racial or ethnic minorities. This may include considering essential elements to guarantee representative, independent, transparent and accessible accountability mechanisms as a means to prevent the abuse of police powers. 12. Participants will identify effective positive measures that foster or strengthen trust in law enforcement personnel and prevent or address the failure of law enforcement (actual or perceived) to protect minorities from violence against them. This will include a discussion on effective community engagement and empowerment initiatives and strategies, and examples of community outreach by police as a good practice model. 4. Challenges of criminal justice systems in addressing the needs and demands of minorities 13. Participants will consider specific challenges that minorities face in criminal judicial proceedings, including obstacles to realizing their rights to equality before the law, to nondiscrimination and to fair trial. Discussions will include an analysis of experiences of minorities as witnesses giving testimony in criminal proceedings, and the identification of measures to promote and respect the cultural environment and/or religious belief of witnesses during proceedings. The identification of obstacles preventing minorities from enjoying the guarantee of quality legal representation, including by addressing the issue of availability and affordability of quality legal assistance and lack of knowledge of options available for minorities, will also be addressed. Measures to ensure the protection and implementation of the linguistic rights of minorities in the context of criminal proceedings, whether as accused or witness, will also be considered. 3