A/HRC/13/25 B. Political parties 30. Political parties should be aware of the diversity of the society and/or communities that they represent and make active efforts to take concrete steps to reflect such diversity. They should adopt policies that recognize the importance of reflecting diversity in their work, and develop plans to increase the level of minority participation within their ranks. 31. Political parties should adopt codes of conduct to prohibit inflammatory racist rhetoric and racist political platforms, not only during campaign periods but also between elections. Furthermore, there should be internal party mechanisms with the capacity to impose strong sanctions against party candidates who violate such codes of conduct. 32. Political parties with a national or broadly based constituency should develop strategies for more effective outreach to potential supporters and constituents within both majority and minority communities. They should allocate resources to determining the specific needs of members of minorities to facilitate their full participation in political, economic, social and cultural life. Parties should actively seek to ensure that all groups in society are aware of minority concerns, and should provide opportunities for meaningful consultation among all groups within society. 33. Political parties based primarily on minority or regional affiliation should not be prohibited solely for this reason. Nevertheless, narrowly drawn restrictions may be placed on the advocacy of violence to achieve political goals or on political platforms that incite hatred or discrimination. 34. In electoral systems of proportional representation using a party list, political parties should ensure that the names of persons belonging to minorities are placed high enough on the party list to ensure that they gain seats in the legislative body. 35. Political parties should consider establishing mentoring programmes through which successful minority politicians could act as role models, encouraging others to run for office, raising awareness of minority political participation and reaching out to the majority population to ensure continuous dialogue between all groups. C. National human rights institutions 36. National human rights institutions should ensure that they are representative of the diversity of their respective societies, reflecting the full spectrum of views, issues and challenges. They should put in place a specific mechanism within their secretariat to address minority issues and develop outreach programmes and civic education aimed at increasing the effective political participation of persons belonging to minorities. They should ensure that persons belonging to minorities are both involved in and have access to all their programmes, including in complaint mechanisms, and ensure that human rights materials are available in the minority languages. D. Civil society 37. Civil society should: (a) Continue to play its role in breaking down the barriers preventing effective political participation of minorities, including through capacity-building and training activities, to ensure that representatives of minorities may participate effectively; (b) Develop civic education projects targeted at minority communities, highlighting the citizen’s rights, roles and responsibilities, and offer training to young 6 GE.10-10615