A/HRC/4/19 page 18 seeking confirmation of those statements, and any responses or measures taken in the light of the relevant international instruments. The Government of the Niger, whose country was explicitly implicated, announced its intention to bring the matter before the French courts. At the time of writing this report, Mr. Frêche remains head of the Languedoc-Roussillon regional council and Mr. Sevran continues to work as a presenter on a State television channel. In future reports, the Special Rapporteur intends to address the profound significance of this worrying trend towards the trivialization and intellectual legitimization of racism in the resurgence of racism and xenophobia. D. Racism, discrimination and xenophobia at points of entry, and in reception and waiting areas 46. The Special Rapporteur remains alarmed at the racist and xenophobic treatment, in many countries, of asylum-seekers, refugees and immigrants in waiting areas, particularly airports, ports and stations, which is an indication that racism, discrimination and xenophobia are on the rise. As a result of the overriding focus on combating terrorism, the treatment of non-citizens, immigrants, refugees and asylum-seekers is characterized by suspicion, mistrust, fear that they may be dangerous, and by cultural and religious hostility. Such sentiments result in the widespread implementation of national policies that tend to restrict the economic and social rights (housing, education, health) of these communities and thus illustrate that the political primacy of security over the law brings about a decline in human rights. 47. Such policies are first applied at the points of entry to a country (airports, ports, borders): widespread use of discriminatory measures, such as targeting people because of their ethnic, cultural or religious appearance, systematic and humiliating searches, refoulement, separate counters for citizens and foreigners, and excessively long queues at counters for foreigners. In this regard, human rights organizations report that waiting areas for asylum-seekers and persons who have been refused entry have become “no-rights zones”, characterized, inter alia, by a lack of access - or difficult access - to redress and defence, by physical and verbal violence of a racist nature on the part of law enforcement officers, by cramped conditions and lack of privacy, the absence or lack of minimum conditions of hygiene, and by the absence or inadequacy of measures to protect women and children. The alarming number and seriousness of the violent incidents caused by such conditions, as well as the conditions in which persons in such places are expelled and returned, justifies the need to pay special attention to this resurgent form of discrimination and racism. These conditions, which the Special Rapporteur has already denounced in previous reports (see E/CN.4/2006/16, paras. 39-43), remain a source of concern. Human rights organizations and associations have denounced the appalling conditions in the aforementioned places on several occasions. E. Racism and sport 48. The Special Rapporteur continued to consider the issue of racism in sport in his interim report to the General Assembly at its sixty-first session (A/61/335), pursuant to Assembly resolution 60/144, in which the Assembly expressed its concern “at the increasing incidence of racism in various sporting events” and invited Member States “to demonstrate greater