A/71/269 by intolerant groups and may even arrogate to themselves the authority to act as guardians of the purity of religious doctrines against so -called “unbelievers”, “heretics” and people demonstrating religiously “deviant” behaviour. The general experience has been that, apart from violating, if not totally denying, the universal right to freedom of religion or belief, such “theocratic” regimes, wherever they exist, typically stifle any serious intellectual debate on religious issues and thus often create a climate of bigotry and hypocrisy. Hence, it is no coincidence that the opposition against theocratic regimes always includes critical believers of the very same religion that the Government pretends to protect, since they may feel that such governmental “guardianship” merely leads to superficial conformism, which actually undermines any persuasiveness and attractiveness of their religion. 2. Utilizing religion for demarking national identity 28. Apart from Governments that pretend to protect particular religious truth claims, many Governments promote certain religions in order to define and demark their national or cultural identity. The use of religion in rhetoric on national ident ity occurs more frequently than governmental aspirations to protect the “purity” of specific truth claims. The singling out of certain religions or beliefs for special protection as part of a national heritage sometimes leads to their formal entrenchment in the Constitution or in other legal statutes. Privileged religions also exist under the auspices of “secular” States. In spite of their claim to be religiously neutral, quite a number of formally secular States nonetheless demarcate their national identit y by drawing sharp distinctions between “national” religions worthy of support and “foreign” religions deemed dangerous or destructive to national cohesion. 29. A country’s officially or factually protected national heritage can cover more than one religion. Besides the traditionally hegemonic national religion, it may also include certain traditional minorities, which are viewed as constituting parts of the country’s “traditional mosaic” (see A/HRC/22/51/Add.1). In such a constellation, the dividing line between accepted and non-accepted communities may chiefly run between traditional and non-traditional religions. While those minorities who have traditionally resided in the country are more or less appre ciated, people belonging to so-called “non-traditional” minorities, by contrast, may face suspicion and hostility. 30. In a number of countries, small and non-traditional minorities, often branded as “sects”, carry the stigma of operating as “fifth columns” in the interest of “foreign powers” or “foreign donors”, thus allegedly eroding the country’s national cohesion. Public media campaigns and hostile stereotypes, which at times are even promoted within the official school curriculum, may encourage nationalist groups to commit acts of violence against members of such minorities, not infrequently even with the tacit approval, if not the direct participation, of parts of the State apparatus. 3. Exercising excessive political control 31. Yet other Governments commit violations of freedom of religion or belief for utterly mundane purposes, for example, in the interest of exercising political control over society as a whole. In this context, the “war on terrorism” has proven a convenient pretext for a number of Governments when wishing to impose farreaching control measures that encroach on freedom of religion or belief and other human rights. 10/22 16-13296