Switzerland defends itself against accusations of racism in the UN report
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According to a report by a UN group of experts, discrimination based on skin color is a regular occurrence in Switzerland during police operations and in court.
As such, this does not affect the Swiss representation at the United Nations. Racial discrimination against people with firmly rooted roots is a problem that urgently needs to be addressed, Swiss Ambassador to the UN Jürg Lauber told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday. The statistical dimension of racism needs further evaluation.
Lauber announced that the federal agency for combating racism would publish a study on this in the coming weeks.
The UN Group of Experts on People of African Descent (WGEPAD) visited Switzerland in January at the invitation of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA).
Discriminatory police operations
The group’s president, Catherine Namakula, will review its report at the Human Rights Council on Monday. They confirmed that the members of the group were very concerned.
At the end of January, representatives of the working group had already criticized at a media conference in Bern that racist behavior towards people with artificial roots was widespread in Switzerland – especially among the police and judiciary.
They confirm their conclusions from talks with those affected and the authorities in Zurich, Bern, Lausanne and Geneva. Despite the recognizable goodwill of the federal government, there is always discrimination based on skin color during police operations and in court, the experts stated.
They also demanded that loopholes in the law should be closed. The lack of a civil law basis makes the fight against racism more difficult and offers no protection to victims in simple areas of life, such as living and working.
“Only isolated cases”
The group also identified the fact that there is a lack of centrally recorded data on racial profiling as a problem area. It is about cases in which people are suspected of a crime and checked by the police because of the color of their skin.
Lauber criticized on Monday that the group seems to be based on many general conclusions only on individual cases. These are not representative of the overall situation.
Switzerland also accused the group of experts that the report contained misunderstandings and assumptions that had no basis. They lasted that the dialogue with the experts did not last longer.
Expert Meets Brian
Among other things, the UN experts had met the young criminal Brian, who had become known nationwide through a television documentary, in Zurich’s Pöschwies prison. The delegation also spoke to the relatives of a man who was shot and fatally injured by police at Morges VD train station at the end of August.
The report contains a number of recommendations. Among other things, the demand is for the establishment of ombudsman offices – and for police officers to wear body cameras and make their pictures publicly accessible. The authorities must recognize that there is systemic racism in Switzerland. (SDA)