E/CN.4/2000/65 page 6 12. Another communication sent by the Special Rapporteur alleged that the decree on the establishment and administration of alternative service had not been implemented and that, in 1999, a Jehovah’s Witness had reportedly been harassed by the police and the military authorities because he was trying to exercise his right to alternative service. 13. In a second communication, the Special Rapporteur referred to allegations of the arrest of a Jehovah’s Witness in the Khashmaz region, the confiscation of his works and video equipment and his sentencing by the Regional People’s Court to 15 days’ administrative detention because of his conversion. After his release, he was threatened with deportation by the regional bureau chief of the Ministry of National Security if he did not give up his belief. 14. A third communication alleged that there was intolerance and discrimination against Jehovah’s Witnesses following a hate campaign by some media and law enforcement officials. In August 1999, a local television station, helped by a security official of the regional office of the Ministry of National Security reportedly broadcast a programme stating, inter alia, that the Jehovah’s Witnesses paid money for any conversion of Muslims to their faith. That programme was also allegedly used by the director of a company against his Jehovah’s Witness employees in order to dismiss them if they would not give up their faith. Bangladesh 15. It is alleged that, on her return to Bangladesh to be with her sick mother, there were renewed calls for the murder of the writer Taslima Nasreen by Muslim extremists, who accused her of blasphemy. The prosecution of the writer under article 295 of the Penal Code “for having deliberately and maliciously outraged the religious sentiments of a class of citizens” is said to have been resumed; likewise, an order for her arrest and the confiscation of her property is said to have been issued. Despite legislation that guarantees freedom of religion and its manifestations, in fact foreign missionaries reportedly have to limit their religious activities, particularly those addressed to Muslims. Where women are concerned, the Muslim Family Ordinance reportedly places them in a disadvantageous position in respect of divorce. In addition, despite the existence of legislation protecting women against arbitrary action in the event of divorce, these provisions reportedly do not cover unregistered traditional marriages in rural areas. In December 1998, a decision by the Supreme Court overruling a verdict which recognized the right of a divorced Muslim wife to alimony from her former husband until she remarried or died is said to have resulted in the restoration of a law limiting the payment of alimony to only three months. Belarus 16. A 1995 directive by the Cabinet of Ministers reportedly restricts the religious activities of foreign missionaries exclusively to institutions which invited them. Unregistered religious organizations are said not to be authorized to invite foreign religious personnel. Moreover, local authorities reportedly refused requests by Seventh Day Adventists to rent public buildings for religious purposes, which, it is said, poses a problem, in that, in many places, no private place of worship is said to be available to them.