Excerpt:
A tough new French counter-terrorism bill could have discriminatory repercussions, especially for Muslims, and puts the country's human rights record at risk, UN experts have said.
The bill proposed by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, is designed to allow France to end its two-year state of emergency by transferring certain exceptional emergency policing powers into permanent law.
Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, a special UN rapporteur, said the bill contains provisions that could harm the rights to liberty, security, freedom of assembly and freedom of religion.
Another UN rapporteur, Michel Forst, warned that the bill, being debated by the French parliament, risked creating a "permanent emergency situation", handing the state special policing powers without the proper control of judges and the legal system.