A/76/302 services and accommodations more broadly, including access to housing, employment and education. 21 40. In Colombia, civil society organizations reported the use of policing as a mechanism to instil fear in, degrade or control people and communities of African descent during the COVID-19 pandemic. 22 They measured significant racial profiling based on skin colour and skin tone and found that people of African descent were 2−14 times more likely to be fined in a police interaction than similarly situated non-Black people. Civil society also reported that the open use of stop and arrest quotas left youth and others facing escalating rates of police conduct absent adequate cause. In addition, the decentralized nature of the police in Colombia left many abuses of authority concealed from national or higher-level authorities. Specific individuals offered testimonies reporting harassment including strip searches, being made to do push-ups, and sexual assaults by the police in routine stops and arrests. Youth in detention reported forced labour in exchange for release. Several police themselves acknowledged racial stereotypes, dehumanization and the use of animalizing and offensive racial tropes against people of African descent, openly admitting that it led them to more frequent use of force and acknowledging their perception that they should protect communities from people of African descent rather than seeing Afro-Colombians as part of their own communities. 41. Law enforcement agents used techniques that sometimes placed protesters at risk, including the encirclement and squeezing of demonstrators (“kettling”) that had been linked to police abuses in the past. In New York City, people of African descent experienced police violence during COVID-19 that continued as demonstrations began. Training documents showed instructions on using bicycles as “force multipliers” in gaining compliance from mass demonstrations. 23 C. Protest, public awareness and the global demand for change in the context of racial disparities and police impunity 42. In 2021, popular protest and global demand that States confront and dismantle systemic racism continued, in addition to reforms and investigations catalysed by the events of the prior year(s) around the globe. The murder of George Floyd and others, as well as the long history of police impunity and a culture of denial, had become untenable to many. Many protesters demanded the defunding of police or the redistribution of public resources away from carceral and force -driven problemsolving. In addition, ending or reducing the use of qualified immunity to protect the police from civil liability for misconduct remained a core demand of protesters. 24 43. These demands for equity, equality and change were not welcomed universally; efforts to compromise or sabotage them existed. In some racial justice protests, rogue operators or white nationalist agitators were discovered to be behind violence and __________________ 21 22 23 24 21-11641 S. Priya Morley, “Reckoning with racism against Black migrants in Mexico”, Open Gl obal Rights, 16 February 2021. According to the civil society submission from ILEX (Colombia) of May 2021. John Bolger and Alice Speri, “NYPD ‘goon squad’ manual teaches officers to violate protesters’ rights”, The Intercept, 7 April 2021. In the United States, Colorado (Enhance Law Enforcement Integrity Act (SB20 -217) (2020)) and New Mexico (Civil Rights Act (HB 4) (2021)) are the first two states to effectively ban qualified immunity. New York City appears poised to be the first city to se verely limit qualified immunity (see https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/york-city-moves-end-qualified-immunity-making1st/story?id=76752098). 13/22