EU: Racist policing widely under-reported, FRA says
The EU's Fundamental Rights Agency, FRA, says racist policing is widely under-reported in the European Union.
In a new report, the Vienna-based agency said most EU countries had "no official data sources on racist incidents and discrimination involving the police".
It said just a few countries recorded incidents of police racism separately.
Of these, only Germany, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands publish the data.
The report builds on previous research by FRA showing that the police most often stop young men, ethnic minorities, Muslims or people who do not identify as heterosexual.
"The number of officially recorded incidents of police racism is very low," the report said. "This makes it impossible to assess prevalence of the issue."
In 2020, it said, the Czech Republic recorded one investigation of the security forces for hate crimes or crimes with an extremist background.
In 2020 and 2021, Denmark recorded 12 incidents and Greece recorded 25 incidents.
The report said the low number of recorded cases did not mean that "racist policing doesn't exist" and pointed to evidence from surveys, media reports and civil society organisations.
FRA said that in recent years in the EU, several people with minority ethnic backgrounds had been shot dead "following interactions with the police".
It referred to a series of violent incidents in Greece, involving police officers and Roma boys and men, which caused a public outcry.
In one case in 2022, the report said, Greek police fatally shot a 16-year-old Roma boy during a chase in which he reportedly failed to pay a petrol bill of €20.
In Portugal, it said seven police officers were to go on trial, charged with beating migrants from Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
"Racism in policing has far-reaching effects, fuelling social exclusion and undermining trust in police forces," FRA said.
The agency called on EU countries to do more to systematically report and record racist incidents by the police. It said all EU countries should strengthen national laws against "racial and ethnic discrimination and racism".
The report also noted that that while most European countries have police watchdogs, many are not independent.
It called on countries to increase diversity in police forces.
In 2022, FRA conducted a survey among people of African descent in 13 EU countries about being stopped by the police.
It found that the highest number of people of African descent stopped were in Austria, followed by Germany and Ireland.
It said more men reported being stopped than women.
