A/62/306 20. In his main conclusions and recommendations, the Special Rapporteur invited the Council to remind member States of the crucial importance of political will in the refusal to trivialize racism, xenophobia and related intolerance, the rejection of their use in politics and electoral campaigns and the systematic combating of racist and xenophobic political platforms. In that spirit, he invited the Council to encourage member States to demonstrate renewed commitment to the implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action, including through the organization, in cooperation with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, of regional conferences to assess the progress of and challenges and obstacles to such implementation, following the example of the Regional Conference of the Americas held in Brasilia in July 2006, which brought together Governments, affected communities, civil society and international and regional organizations. Accordingly, he welcomes the launching by the General Assembly of the Durban Conference review process, in which he intends to participate actively. He also invited the Council to draw the attention of member States to the serious nature of the defamation of religion and to the need to counter these phenomena by strengthening interreligious and intercultural dialogue and promoting reciprocal understanding and joint action between different religions and spiritual traditions to meet the basic universal challenges of development, peace, the protection and promotion of human rights and the elimination of all forms of discrimination. Furthermore, he invited the Council to encourage member States to wage a systematic campaign against incitement to racial and religious hatred by maintaining a careful balance between the defence of freedom of expression and respect for the freedom of religion and by acknowledging and respecting the complementarity among all the freedoms contained in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Lastly, in order to prevent the resurgence of racism and xenophobia and the conflation of race, culture and religion, the Special Rapporteur reiterated his recommendation on the need to assess manifestations of racism and xenophobia accurately and to establish, to this end, within the Office of the High Commissioner, a centre for monitoring racist phenomena. 21. The report on political platforms which promote or incite racial discrimination (A/HRC/5/10) elaborates on and updates earlier reports submitted to the Commission on Human Rights (E/CN.4/2004/61, E/CN.4/2006/54) and to the General Assembly (A/59/330) on this issue. The report confirms the significant tendencies identified in the Special Rapporteur’s previous reports, such as the normalization of racism, racial discrimination and xenophobia for political ends; the penetration of the racist and xenophobic political platforms of extreme right-wing parties and movements in the political agendas of democratic parties, particularly with respect to immigration, asylum and terrorism; and the growing intellectual legitimization of those platforms, as shown, inter alia, by the increasing number of so-called scientific or literary works which, on the pretext of protecting national identity and security, develop explanatory theories and concepts characterized by an ethnic or racial interpretation of social, economic and political problems. 22. In his conclusions and recommendations, the Special Rapporteur underscores the importance of strong manifestations of political will and strict ethical standards not only for combating the influence of racist and xenophobic platforms on the political agendas of democratic parties, but also for ensuring that these parties cannot gain democratic legitimacy by joining government coalitions. He also encourages the participation and representation of ethnic, cultural and religious 8 07-49048