A/51/542/Add.1 English Page 16 the law precluded any discriminatory treatment and that in practice such behaviour was penalized. 67. The Ministry of Defence emphasized, on the one hand, that there was no legal obstacle to the admission of religious minorities, including Catholics, to the army, and, on the other hand, that no distinction of a religious nature was made within the structures of the army or under military law. (iv) Other spheres 68. The non-governmental representatives consider that the religious minorities are subjected to a general climate of intolerance in the form of insidious and psychological pressures related to the problems outlined above. Another point concerns the mention of religion on identity cards, which is unanimously rejected as being a source of discrimination. The situation is said to be due to the preponderant influence of the Orthodox Church, principally its authorities, which are said to use religion as a tool to manipulate the people and the politicians to the detriment of religious minorities and to do so in order to affirm and safeguard their power and their status as the dominant religion. 69. This intolerance on the part of the Orthodox Church is reportedly echoed by the media, tolerated, or even utilized, by politicians for electoral ends and relayed by certain administrative officials; it exerts pressure on the justice system and is exacerbated, in particular, on the occasion of external events such as the fall of communism in Eastern Europe and the Balkans and the war in the former Yugoslavia (as the majority of the population of these countries is of the Orthodox faith, any action by the Catholic Church is interpreted by the Greek Orthodox Church as an attempt at conversion; the Vatican is also accused of cooperating with Muslims against the Orthodox Serbs in the former Yugoslavia). 70. According to the governmental delegates, the State and its legislation, while recognizing the dominant, but not overwhelming, role of the Orthodox Church, which represents the religion of the majority of the population for historical, national and traditional reasons, are said to provide a climate of religious freedom, notwithstanding isolated cases of intolerance or discrimination, in particular in the administration. According to the Ministry of Justice, the problems indicated by the representatives of the religious minorities are exaggerated and their claims are attributable to a pattern of behaviour, or even a complex, characteristic of any minority which feels it has to assert and organize itself to confront the majority. A similar line of argument was put forward by the representatives of the Orthodox Church (see chap. II, B). /...