Police Scotland has been referred to the United Nations over controversial stop-and-search practices.


The Scottish Human Rights Commission (SHRC) said it has noted its concerns over the tactic, which is currently under review by the force, in a report to the UN Human Rights Committee.
Its chairman Professor Alan Miller said: "Stop and search has its place as a means of ensuring public safety.
"However, it should only be carried out where there is a clear legal basis for interfering with someone's basic right to privacy.
"We should all be free to go about our daily business unless the police have reasonable suspicion that we are doing something illegal.
"Police Scotland has repeatedly failed to take appropriate steps to address the concerns that the commission and others have raised.
"A review announced in February promised progress but, in reality, has not led to any tangible change. Unlawful stop and search continues to take place on Scotland's streets. This must stop."
Mr Miller's use the word "unlawful" to describe consensual stop and searches will have upset senior officers, although they did not comment on the wording.
His officials later said he did not mean they were illegal - they have never been found to be so. A spokeswoman clarified: "At the moment the practice is unlawful because it is taking place without having any basis in law.
"If it was successfully challenged in the courts, it would then become illegal."
Rank-and-file officers believe that consensual stop and searches - traditionally simply called "searches" in Scotland until the recent introduction of English terminology - were useful when used sparingly.
Overall stop-and-search figures peaked in the year before Police Scotland and have declined ever since. However, the Scottish Police Federation believe a targets-culture meant a huge rise in the number of such searches in certain parts of the country.
The body's chairman, Brian Docherty, said: "We have consistently and vocally opposed the drive for volume searches by police officers.
"We strongly believe that the approach of the service has been misguided and has led to an understandable hostility to what is widely accepted as being a valuable crime fighting tool.
"In addition, the intense and understandable concerns have led to the creation of an internal bureaucratic industry which in our view makes far from the best use of stretched police resources."
People in Scotland are four times more likely to be stopped and searched by police than elsewhere in Britain, according to research published last month. Supporters of Scottish searches consensual searches stress these are a much less robust encounter with the public than English-style "statutory" ones, which are based on suspicion.
The SHRC has previously called for an end to "non-statutory" stop and search and initially raised the issue with the UN Human Rights Committee in July last year.
The body said it looked forward to a forthcoming report by the Stop and Search Advisory Group established by the Scottish Government and would respond accordingly.
Scottish Liberal Democrat justice spokeswoman Alison McInnes said: "The Human Rights Commission has closely advised the national force during its attempts to reform this controversial tactic.
"It is therefore all the more damning that this independent public body has concluded that there has not been 'any tangible change' and chosen to refer the matter to the United Nations for a second time."