A/HRC/28/66 E. Obligations and responsibilities under international law 1. Overarching obligations of the State 41. The State is not just another stakeholder alongside various other actors and institutions. As the formal guarantor of human rights under international law, the State has an overarching obligation that can be divided conceptually into three levels, that is, the obligations to respect, to protect and to promote human rights. (a) Obligations to respect 42. For the context of the present discussion, the obligations to respect chiefly require that the State abandon all sorts of — formal or informal — policies of exclusion by which persons belonging to certain groups suffer discrimination.9 This has manifold consequences. In particular, Government representatives must clearly refrain from any statements that may be perceived as condoning or even encouraging acts of violence that target religious dissenters, religious minorities or other groups of people. Legislation that renders the existence of certain religious communities as such “illegal” in the country or prevents them from developing a sustainable infrastructure is incompatible with the universal right to freedom of religion or belief and should be revoked. Such legislation furthermore fuels resentments and may encourage acts of intimidation, including by law enforcement agencies. Moreover, the State should repeal anti-blasphemy laws, anticonversion laws and criminal laws that discriminate against certain people according to their religious affiliations or beliefs or criminalize their “dissident” practices. Apart from further increasing the vulnerability of marginalized groups or individuals, these laws may give a pretext to vigilante groups and other perpetrators of hatred for intimidating people and committing acts of violence. Textbooks used for school education should not contain stereotypes and prejudices that may stoke hostile sentiments against the followers of certain religions or beliefs and groups that suffer systematic discrimination, including women and LGBT persons. 43. In order to operate as a credible guarantor of freedom of religion or belief for everyone, the State should not identify itself exclusively with one particular religion or belief (or one particular type of religions) at the expense of equal treatment of the followers of other faiths.10 As ample experience demonstrates, the use of religion in the context of national identity politics always harbours aggravated risks of discrimination against minorities, for instance, against members of immigrant religious communities or new religious movements, thus creating divisiveness within the society. Any exclusivist settings should therefore be critically addressed and finally replaced by an inclusive institutional framework in which religious diversity can unfold without discrimination and without fear. (b) Obligations to protect 44. Violations of human rights do not only originate from the State; they are quite often carried out by non-State actors. Nonetheless, the State bears a responsibility for such acts inasmuch as they may reflect inadequate human rights protection. 45. A first step towards providing protection against violence in the name of religion is a quick and unequivocal condemnation of any such acts, whenever they occur, by high representatives of the State. State representatives should indeed take the lead in rejecting violence, expressing sympathy for victims and providing public support for targeted 9 10 See Human Rights Committee general comment no. 22, CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.4, paras. 9 and 10. See A/HRC/19/60, paras. 65 and 66. 11