ENAR: The EU-sponsored man hunt “Mos Maiorum” is a discriminatory and costly operation
A two-week EU-wide police operation, dubbed ‘Mos Maiorum’, was launched on 13 October to detect, detain and possibly deport irregular migrants. This massive control operation is extremely worrying both in terms of discriminatory stop and search practices and protecting the basic rights of asylum seekers, refugees and migrants.
The European Network Against Racism (ENAR) condemns this ‘Fortress Europe’ approach to migration and the disastrous consequences it has for migrants, as well as ethnic and religious minorities as a whole, across Europe. This operation is leading to hundreds of random identity checks at train and bus stations, on highways and in public spaces, and anyone looking ‘foreign’ is being targeted. The use of racial, ethnic, national, or religious characteristics as a way of singling out people for identity or security checks – racial profiling – is discriminatory. This adds to existing racial profiling practices, confirmed by research showing that Black people are 7 times more likely to be stopped and searched than white people in England & Wales and 6 times more in Paris.
