A/HRC/28/66 of impunity. Human rights violations can even originate directly from the State apparatus itself, for example, when a Government resorts to violent repression in order to “defend” a State religion or existing religious hegemonies against perceived threats by religious competitors or internal dissidents. The State’s involvement with violence in the name of religion thus shows a broad variety of patterns, ranging from lack of capacity to indirect or direct forms of complicity or deliberate policies of religious discrimination, sometimes even culminating in formal endorsement or systematic orchestration of such violence by the State. 6. Violence in the name of religion disproportionately targets religious dissidents, members of religious minorities or converts.3 People suspected of undermining national cohesion are also frequent targets of intolerant violence. Attacks will also likely increase where there is a recognized “official” or State religion or when a religion is used as a medium to define national identity. Moreover, vigilante groups, sometimes with the support of law enforcement agencies, attack people, in particular women, whose ways of life are deemed “immoral” from the standpoint of certain narrowly defined religious codes of conduct. 7. However, violence in the name of religion also affects followers of the very same religion, possibly also from a majority religion, in whose name such acts are perpetrated. Voices of moderation or critics who actively oppose the abuse of their religion for the justification of violence bear an increased risk of being accused of “betrayal” or “blasphemy” and having retaliatory penalties inflicted upon themselves. 8. The relevance of the issue with respect to freedom of religion or belief is obvious since violence in the name of religion is a source of many of the most extreme violations of this human right, usually in conjunction with other human rights violations as well. Freedom of religion or belief, due to its nature as a human right, protects human beings rather than religions. The starting point for any assessment of religious or belief pluralism must therefore be the self-understandings of human beings in this area, which may be quite diverse. 9. Victims of violence come from all religious or belief backgrounds. They comprise adherents to large “traditional” communities and followers of small or new religious movements, which are often stigmatized as “sects”. Furthermore, atheists and agnostics suffer in many countries from a climate of intimidation, repression or violence. Another frequently neglected group of people are the adherents to different indigenous beliefs, who are also targets of violence carried out by State agencies and/or non-State actors. 10. Countless examples demonstrate that violence in the name of religion usually displays a pronounced gender dimension. 4 Many women and girls are victims of “honour” killings, acid attacks, amputations or floggings, sometimes pursuant to penal codes that are based on religious laws. Women and girls also disproportionately suffer from sexual violence, such as rape, abduction, sexual enslavement, female genital mutilation, forced marriage, often in conjunction with forced conversion, or other cruelties. 3 4 4 See A/67/303, para. 15. See, for example, www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=10522&LangID=E, www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=14125&LangID=E, www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=14618&LangID=E, www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=14936&LangID=E and www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=15094&LangID=E.