A/HRC/61/33 preparatory course in Bolzano/Bozen, Italy, organized jointly with the Institute for Minority Rights at Eurac Research. The fellows also participated in the Forum on Minority Issues. 47. At the eighteenth session of the Forum on Minority Issues, 44 participants sought to highlight the vital role minorities play in fostering stable, resilient and peaceful societies, as well as the positive contributions of minorities through their unique characteristics, perspectives and differences. They also examined the challenges that continued to hinder their full participation and empowerment. The Forum provided a platform for exploring best practices at the local, national, regional and international levels, showcasing how minority communities actively promoted multilayered identities, advanced social justice and strengthened societal resilience. 48. In its report on the situation of human rights in Sri Lanka, submitted to the Human Rights Council in August, OHCHR drew attention to the entrenched ethnic discrimination and continued marginalization of minority communities, in particular Tamils, Muslims and Malaiyaha Tamils. OHCHR noted that empowering and ensuring the participation of minorities in Sri Lanka required constitutional, legal and institutional reforms that guaranteed equality, the devolution of political and administrative power to local levels and the creation of an enabling environment for transitional justice through inclusive consultations and confidence-building measures. Those steps were deemed essential to dismantling structural ethnic discrimination and fostering inclusive governance and national unity.45 H. Linguistic minorities 49. The United Nations Transitional Assistance Mission in Somalia supported civil society actors and community representatives in promoting minority languages and advocating for linguistic diversity. It worked with the Baydari Organisation for the Protection of Rights of Minorities in Somalia and community leaders to translate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights into Baydari, spoken by the Madhibaan community, a minority group facing descent-based discrimination. The initiative enabled linguistic minorities to gain access to information about their rights in their own languages. 50. In May, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination expressed concern about barriers to education in minority languages in Kyrgyzstan. While the Law on Education and the Law on the State Language guaranteed multilingual education, the Committee noted the absence of measures to ensure education in their mother tongues for ethnic minorities, including Uzbeks and other groups. The Committee urged the Government to implement reforms to guarantee access to education in minority languages. 46 51. Also in May, in its concluding observations on the combined twenty-fourth to twenty-sixth periodic reports submitted by Ukraine under the Convention, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination noted the adoption of the Law on National Minorities and the Unity in Diversity programme, aimed at promoting equality and protecting the civil, political, social, economic, cultural and linguistic rights of ethnic minorities. However, it expressed concern about discriminatory provisions affecting ethnic and ethno-linguistic minority groups whose languages were not official languages of the European Union, inconsistent access to education for minorities in their mother tongues and the temporary suspension of rights, including to peaceful assembly, for some ethnic minority groups. The Committee urged Ukraine to review its Law on National Minorities and subsequent amendments to repeal discriminatory provisions, ensure equal access to education in their mother tongues for all ethnic and ethno-linguistic minorities and rescind restrictions on their political, civil, economic, social and cultural rights.47 52. In July, in its concluding observations on the fourth periodic report submitted by Latvia under the Covenant, the Human Rights Committee expressed concern that the amendments made to education legislation, which were aimed at transitioning all instruction 44 45 46 47 GE.25-21065 See www.ohchr.org/en/events/forums/2025/eighteenth-session-forum-minority-issues. A/HRC/60/21, paras. 9, 21, 22, 27, 28, 57, 58 and 63. CERD/C/KGZ/CO/11-12, paras. 31 and 32. CERD/C/UKR/CO/24-26, paras. 19 and 20. 11