A/HRC/43/48 violence, or official sanction. At the consultations on South and South-East Asia, participants noted that, while laws prohibiting blasphemy and related offences might be facially genderneutral, they had the effect of silencing dissent and criticism of laws enshrining genderdiscriminatory practices that had been justified on the basis of religious beliefs. Similarly, at the consultations held in Poland, similar concerns were raised about article 196 of the Criminal Code of Poland, which criminalized “offence to religious feelings”. These laws impermissibly restrict the right to freedom of expression and pose serious obstacles to those who seek to confront and promote the reform of the discriminatory laws and policies identified above. V. International legal framework 59. The right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion or belief includes: (a) the right to hold or to change one’s theistic, non-theistic, atheistic or non-religious beliefs; and (b) the right to manifest those beliefs individually or in community with others. These two aspects of the right are interdependent; both protect people in their ability to think independently and to develop identity, while shaping religious and non-religious convictions and commitments.43 The components are, however, distinguishable; an individual’s right to form, develop, adopt and maintain a religious or non-religious belief of his or her choice is absolute. The freedom to manifest a religion or belief can be restricted, however, only if the limitations are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety, order, health or morals, or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others. 60. The legally instituted limits on manifesting freedom of religion or belief reflect the fact that an essential part of the right to freedom of religion or belief is that freedom of religion or belief must not be used for ends that are inconsistent with the Charter of the United Nations or relevant human rights instruments. Both article 30 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and article 5 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights further clarify that no human right may be invoked to destroy another human right. The key findings of the present report evidence the overlap between the right to freedom of religion or belief and the right to non-discrimination in the context of gender (A/HRC/34/50, para. 31; and A/72/365, para. 46). In this regard, the Special Rapporteur outlines below relevant international human rights norms. 61. Gender-based discrimination is prohibited by international law through numerous provisions. Article 26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights provides a freestanding right to equality before the law for all persons. Article 2 establishes the prohibition against discrimination, proscribing distinctions of any kind, including race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status in the exercise of any rights promulgated by the Covenant. Furthermore, article 3 asserts that men and women have an equal right to the enjoyment of all the rights enshrined in the Covenant.44 62. Similar accessory provisions against discrimination can be found in most other human rights instruments, including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, the International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief, and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.45 Under article 2 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, States 43 44 45 14 Heiner Bielefeldt, Nazila Ghanea and Michael Wiener, Freedom of Religion or Belief: An International Law Commentary (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2016), chaps. 2.1 and 3.1. See also Human Rights Committee, general comment No. 28 (2000) on the equality of rights between men and women, para. 21. International Convention on the Rights of the Child, art. 2; International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, art. 7; and International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, art. 5.