Ms Taghreed Jaber, Regional Director, Middle East & North Africa Office of Penal Reform International, stressed the importance of first contact with the police as it tended to reflect or affect the experience of minorities throughout the whole justice process. She emphasised the need to counter the culture of impunity by establishing mechanisms to ensure accountability for actions of police officers. She remarked on the situation of overcrowding that she said characterizes the majority of prisons in the Middle East and North Africa, with its disproportionate impact on vulnerable groups and minorities. She highlighted that a large proportion of persons deprived of liberty remain in pre-trial detention. She noted that detention is often used in a punitive manner, rather than for the goal of rehabilitation, and highlighted the importance of the Bangok Rules for women in detention. Mr. András László Pap, Professor of Law, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and former Rapporteur for the European Parliament on ethnicity- and race-based profiling in counter-terrorism law enforcement and border control, highlighted the challenges raised by collecting data on race or ethnicity when there is no clear definition or classification of minority communities or what constitutes membership within the groups. The options used to define membership, for example reliance on self-declaration by the persons concerned, or based on the perception of the police officer or other outsiders, often from the majority, or even by applying objective criteria, such as name, language, skin color, clothing, or place of birth, are not ideal. He pointed out that discrimination in criminal justice systems can occur both in over- and under-policing of minorities. Ms Durga Sob, Feminist Dalit Organization, shared her observations concerning the challenges of Dalits and Dalit women in the Nepalese criminal justice system. She regretted that the investigation and prosecution system were not sensitive to the poor or to Dalits. As a consequence she highlighted that Dalits do not feel that the system is oriented toward the protection of their rights. In this respect, while caste-based discrimination has been criminalized by law, it remains rare that victims of such discrimination obtain justice. She recommended legislative reform of the criminal justice system in Nepal, the standardization and modernization of investigation policies and methods, and called for a holistic legal aid system be put in place. Ms Salimata Lam, Programme Coordinator at SOS-Esclave, Mauritania, shared observations regarding the situation of victims of slavery and descendants of slaves and of national minorities. She highlighted the difficulties of certain linguistic minorities in navigating the Mauritanian criminal justice system, which predominantly uses Arabic without systematic resort to interpretation services. Courts are centralized, which prevents communities living in the margin from having adequate access to justice. Ms Lam welcomed the draft recommendations related to legal aid as important in improving access to justice for minorities. She also particularly welcomed recommendations related to the training of judges, other judicial actors, and supported the call for access to an interpreter during criminal proceedings. 8