E/CN.4/2005/61 page 11 19. The Special Rapporteur is also guided by human rights instruments adopted at the regional level containing provisions related to the freedom of religion or belief. 20. Finally, the Special Rapporteur also takes into account the jurisprudence of international and regional mechanisms for the protection and promotion of human rights related to questions of freedom of religion or belief in the discharge of her mandate. In this regard, the Special Rapporteur pays particular attention to the views adopted by the Human Rights Committee on individual complaints submitted under the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights as well as concluding observations on the States parties’ periodic reports. The concluding observations and general comments of other United Nations treaty bodies also constitute an important basis for the work of the Special Rapporteur. II. ACTIVITIES 21. The Special Rapporteur started her activities on 23 July 2004. Building, inter alia, on the achievements of her predecessor, she is still in the process of defining the directions of some aspects of the mandate. A. Communications 22. The amount of information received by the Special Rapporteur on cases and situations that appear to fall within the scope of her mandate is overwhelming. It comes from many different sources and deals, given the particular nature of the mandate, with complex and sensitive situations. For these reasons, the Special Rapporteur carries out a close and detailed assessment of the information in order to ensure that the situations or cases that are transmitted to Governments has a very high level of reliability. The Special Rapporteur wishes to underline in this regard that only a part of the information that she receives is the subject of communications to Governments. In case of doubt, the Special Rapporteur will refrain from sending a communication. 23. As is the case for many other special procedures, there is an obvious imbalance between States regarding the amount of information received. The Special Rapporteur stresses that the absence of information about a specific country does not mean that the situation with regard to freedom of religion or belief in that country is necessarily satisfactory. On the contrary, such absence may sometimes be explained by the lack of civil society and/or by obstacles that prevent the information from being transmitted outside the country. The communications mentioned below do not, therefore, account for all incidents or governmental measures in all parts of the world that are incompatible with the provisions of the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief. 24. During the period under review, 69 communications were sent to the following States: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bulgaria, China, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Egypt, Eritrea, France, Georgia, India, Indonesia, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Iraq, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Mexico, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nigeria, Pakistan, Republic of Moldova, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Serbia and Montenegro, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Thailand, The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Turkmenistan, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, United Republic of Tanzania, United States of America, Uzbekistan, and Viet Nam.