E/CN.4/2003/66/Add.1 page 26 protest are subjected to public opprobrium. Politics has given way to calls for killings and executions. It is as though there were no salvation outside extremism, and religious sentiment could be measured by the length of one’s beard or the size of one’s hijab. Rampant theocracy has been gaining sway in Algeria thanks, in part, to violence, while States harbouring Algerian extremists have not been unduly bothered. It must be clearly understood, once and for all, that from this point of view freedom of religion or belief in Algeria is not a problem; what is a problem is the partisan, violent political exploitation of freedom of religion or belief. While upholding freedom of religion or belief, the Algerian State must ensure that everyone living in the country or under its jurisdiction is safe. 145. Controversy still surrounds the role of the mosques, which have often been used to political ends by both the powers that be and the Islamists. While ensuring freedom of worship, the Algerian State must keep partisan disputes, on whatever side they originate, out of the mosques. Respect for the function of the mosques will brook neither interference nor indifference. 146. If there are not to be disturbances in the mosques and if Islam is not to be reduced to fanaticism and extremism, an enlightened Islamic culture will have to be fostered and Islam will have to be rethought, supporting and sustaining efforts to interpret Shariah law, encouraging openness and helping to rationalize methods and approaches to the topic of freedom of religion or belief. 147. Fighting religious extremism and abolishing all forms of intolerance and discrimination based on religion or belief implies preventive economic and social action to prevent young people and others from turning to fanaticism and extremism, seeking comfort in mirages or being tempted by desperate solutions. Extensive unemployment, particularly among the young, intractable housing problems, and limited opportunities for worthwhile occupation, not to speak of entertainment or leisure, provide fertile ground for extremism and violence. The Algerian State must react vigorously. 148. Schools, while providing Algerian children with almost universal and mandatory education, have not always given them adequate or balanced instruction, despite the quality and efforts of many teachers. School curricula concerned with religion or belief must be revised and given the impetus to ensure that future generations are, as far as possible, immunized against extremism, intolerance and discrimination based on religion or belief. Teachers, many of whom require further training, bear considerable responsibility in this sense, since the best educational reform will not go far unless it is backed up by a teaching body prepared to carry out its tasks and aware of the role it must play in entrenching citizenship. 149. The status of women in relation to religion and belief remains frankly worrying. Given the changes that women in Algeria have undergone and the active role played by women’s associations and the Algerian elite generally, there are grounds for a thorough review of the Family Code, which President Boudiaf has described as the “Code de l’Infamie”. Polygamy, a marginal phenomenon, should be banned because it violates Algeria’s international commitments including article 3 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, in the light of which the Human Rights Committee determined