A/69/261 I. Introduction 1. The mandate of the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief was created by the Commission on Human Rights by its resolution 1986/20 and renewed by the Human Rights Council in its resolution 6/37. At the fourteenth session of the Council, Heiner Bielefeldt was appointed as mandate holder and assumed his function on 1 August 2010. The Council, in its resolution 22/20, renewed the mandate for a further period of three years. 2. The General Assembly, in its resolution 68/170, strongly condemned all forms of intolerance and of discrimination based on religion or belief, as well as violations of freedom of thought, conscience and religion or belief, and requested the Special Rapporteur to submit an interim report to the Assembly at its sixty-ninth session. 3. In section II of the present report, the Special Rapporteur provides an overview of his activities since the submission of his previous report to the General Assembly (A/68/290). In section III, he focuses on tackling religious intolerance and discrimination in the workplace. Section IV provides his conclusions and recommendations to various actors in this regard. II. Activities of the Special Rapporteur 4. The Special Rapporteur conducted various activities between 1 August 2013 and 31 July 2014 pursuant to Human Rights Council resolutions 6/37, 14/11 and 22/20. A. Country visits 5. The Special Rapporteur undertook three official country visits: to Jordan, from 2 to 10 September 2013; 1 Kazakhstan, from 25 March to 5 April 2014; and Viet Nam, from 21 to 31 July 2014. 2 He expresses his appreciation to all his interlocutors and officials for the cooperation they extended to him during the visits. Additional official country visits are currently being scheduled. Updated information about the Special Rapporteur’s visits and related requests is available on the website of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). 3 B. Communications 6. The Special Rapporteur deals with individual cases or issues of concern brought to his attention. He sends allegation letters and urgent appeals to States, seeking clarification on credible allegations of incidents and governmental action possibly incompatible with the provisions of the Declaration on the Elimination of __________________ 1 2 3 14-58756 The report of the visit to Jordan was presented to the Human Rights Council at its 25th session, in March 2014 (A/HRC/25/58/Add.2). The reports of the visits to Kazakhstan and Viet Nam will be presented to the Human Rights Council at its 28th session, in March 2015. See www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/SP/Pages/CountryandothervisitsSP.aspx. 3/23