A/HRC/53/62 2001. A classified Federal Bureau of Investigation counter-terrorism policy guide, dated April 2015, indicates that domestic terrorism investigations focused on militia extremists, white supremacist extremists and sovereign citizen extremists often have identified active links to law enforcement officers. In February 2023, the Minnesota Board of Peace Officer Standards and Training adopted a policy prohibiting persons who associate with racist or violent extremist groups or who espouse racist or violent extremist ideologies from serving as law enforcement officers in Minnesota. However, the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association, which is the largest association for law enforcement officers in Minnesota, and the Law Enforcement Labor Services, which is the largest union representing Minnesota law enforcement officers, reportedly oppose the policy and argue that it is unnecessary and excessively broad. 72. According to the information provided, there are many cases of expression of hateful sentiments by law enforcement officers in Minnesota and in the United States more broadly. Multiple investigations of United States law enforcement officers’ online and in-person behaviour have reportedly revealed the widespread use of racist language and the promotion of far-right and racist ideologies. Data collected from the public Facebook posts of current and former law enforcement officers across eight United States cities revealed that about one in five of the current officers and two in five of the retired officers had made public posts or comments containing racist or extremist content, typically by displaying bias, applauding violence, scoffing at due process or using dehumanizing language. 73. Following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, in May 2020, the Minnesota Department of Human Rights reportedly opened an investigation to determine whether the City of Minneapolis and the Minneapolis Police Department were engaged in a pattern of racial discrimination in violation of the Minnesota Human Rights Act. According to body camera footage, disciplinary records, statements from community members and interviews with police officers, the Department of Human Rights discovered the use of racial slurs and misogynistic language among some law officers and supervisors. Racist and extremist behaviour is reportedly sometimes modelled by high-ranking police officials. For example, a former Police Department lieutenant, who also served as the president of the Police Department’s union, has repeatedly referred to Black Lives Matter as a terrorist movement and a terrorist organization and called George Floyd a violent criminal. The Department of Human Rights concluded in its investigation that Minneapolis police officers engaged in the use of force, traffic stops, searches, citations and arrests with significant racial disparities against people of colour, constituting a pattern or practice of racial discrimination, in violation of the Minnesota Human Rights Act. Law enforcement officers in the United States have also failed to protect lawful racial justice demonstrators from violent attacks by far-right extremists. The Department of Human Rights also reportedly discovered that Minneapolis police officers consistently used racist, misogynistic and disrespectful language while on or off duty and that they were rarely held accountable. IV. Applicable international legal framework 74. The Special Rapporteur recalls that the prohibition on racial discrimination is a peremptory norm of public international law.5 The most comprehensive prohibition of racial discrimination can be found in the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Other international human rights treaties, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, also broadly enshrine the principle that all persons, by virtue of their humanity, should enjoy all human rights without 5 14 See A/77/10 and A/CN.4/727.