E/CN.4/1988/45 page 15 activists sentenced for offences against the State and other serious crimes. Many persons, including believers, who had committed criminal offences benefited from early release as part of the amnesty ordered by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union on the occasion of the seventieth anniversary of Soviet power. The requirement that religious associations must register in accordance with Soviet law is a formality by which the State recognizes associations of citizens who are believers. The legal capacity of religious communities arises at the time of registration. It should be made clear that the obligation to register applies not to believers, but to their associations, which thereby acquire the rights of legal persons and benefit from judicial protection. This procedure is not contrary either to the provisions of the Declaration or to those of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It is a custom that is common in many other countries as well. The cases in which persons may be deprived of their parental rights are specifically governed by law (Marriage and Family Codes of the Union Republic). The religious beliefs of the parents may not constitute grounds for depriving them of their parental rights. To our knowledge, there has been no case in which any person has been deprived of his parental rights and his children placed under State guardianship for religious reasons. As already indicated, incitement to hostility and hatred on the grounds of religious beliefs, like the fact of offending the sensibilities of believers, are prohibited in the Soviet Union. Accordingly, the media may criticize only unlawful activities carried out by isolated extremists who commit an offence against Soviet laws. Moreover, a set of documents have been published in which some Soviet workers and members of the Party have been criticized for having expressed preconceived ideas about believers and religious associations and for having thus infringed their rights (see, for example, issue No. 13 (1987) of the magazine Ogonek and the 25 January 1987 and 16 August 1987 issues of Moskovskie Novosti (Moscow News)). Under the legislation in force, a complaint may be filed with a court for any act contrary to the rights of believers." Burundi 20. The Permanent Mission of Burundi addressed its reply to the Special Rapporteur on 4 November 1987. The reply contained the text of the following statement made by the President of the Military Committee for National Safety and President of Burundi on 5 September 1987: "People of Burundi, As you already know, the armed forces of Burundi, by agreement with the other driving forces of the nation, decided, on Thursday, 3 September 1987, to save the country, which had been cut adrift by the Bagaza regime. The population was totally exasperated by sterile religious disputes leading to one rash measure after another. Such repeated, obsessive and unexpected decisions had become an alibi designed to conceal the regime's shortcomings and inconsistencies.