A/HRC/39/69 regularly reacted and responded to such concerns through its communications procedure. Another civil society representative stated that racial profiling had the potential and propensity to give rise to police brutality and other rights violations. The tendency of police forces to disproportionately stop and search people of African descent could also lead to detention experiences that might amount to torture. Mr. Frans expanded upon this, suggesting that racial profiling was a form of racial violence. Mr. Gumedze noted that during the fact-finding country missions undertaken by the Working Group, encounters with police and administrative bodies had revealed a distinct lack of representation of people of African descent, which resulted in people of African descent being unwilling to report violations of their human rights. He noted that the Working Group would continue to encourage representation in such bodies to further address the challenges of racial profiling. 27. The second panel focused on the theme “Administration of justice: police violence, prisons and accountability”. Mr. Gumedze gave a presentation on the topic and commented that the reason for the continued rise in violence against people of African descent lay in the lack of willpower of those who were involved in the administration of justice to apply international human rights principles. Mr. Gumedze recalled the conclusions drawn by the Working Group from its fact-finding visits to several countries on police violence, where a pattern of impunity for police violence, including the killing of unarmed people of African descent, had been involved. He also expressed concern at the overrepresentation of people of African descent in penitentiary systems and prolonged pretrial detention. Racial profiling of people of African descent and the impunity of the officers involved were common and he concluded that States must hold accountable those who violated the rights of people of African descent and ensure that they accounted for their actions or omissions in the administration of criminal justice, as provided for in the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action and directed by the International Decade for People of African Descent. 28. Evita Chevry, an attorney from Guadeloupe, gave a presentation on the administration of justice in Guadeloupe. The fact that most law enforcement officers were white, coupled with the language barrier, were leading causes for the prevalence of racial discrimination. Ms. Chevry stated that police violence existed in Guadeloupe; however, until the media reported such incidents, it was very rare that cases of police violence were heard in the courts. She added that the lack of data on ethnicity should not be an excuse to look further into the unequal treatment of people of African descent since the majority of people in Guadeloupe were of African descent. Ms. Chevry also pointed to overcrowding in prisons and an insufficient number of medical doctors and inadequate facilities in prisons. She expressed concern about lower than national average rates of education among those imprisoned. Ms. Chevry concluded by emphasizing the importance of French human rights obligations. 29. Mr. Frans emphasized in his presentation that racial discrimination in the administration of justice was a global problem, which subverted the rule of law, undermined faith in the legal system and resulted in the victimization of racial and ethnic groups by the very institutions responsible for their protection. He showed how volatile situations could become when racial injustice was combined with the administration of criminal law, providing examples of riots in Los Angeles and Florida. Mr. Frans further commented that despite the significant population of people of African descent in Europe, structural racism, marginalization and the exclusion of people of African descent was not on the European political agenda. He elaborated on how race disproportionately affected people of African descent with regard to the death penalty, harsher sentences, the lower likelihood of making bail and the higher rates of “stop and search” by the police. He concluded his presentation by urging the Working Group to engage with the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) and the International Council of Police Representative Associations to combat racism towards people of African descent in the administration of justice. 30. During the interactive dialogue, Mr. Reid shared his observation from the factfinding visits of the Working Group that there was a growing trend for women of African descent to end up in the criminal justice system, with detrimental effects on their children as well as themselves. Ms. Chevry mentioned that there had been big demonstrations in 8