A/HRC/37/49 76. All States, regardless of their relationship with religion, face challenges in the field of human rights. However, aspects of two such relationships discussed in the present report appear highly incompatible with the range of States’ obligations to uphold freedom of religion or belief. These include those of “religious States” and those with a negative view of religion’s role in public life. The extent to which States support an official religion, the degree to which they enforce that religion and the extent to which they control, regulate and restrict the religion pose significant implications for States’ disposition to promote and protect freedom of religion or belief. On the other hand, States with a negative view of religion tend to impose restrictions on all religion, including those held by the majority of persons under their jurisdiction. Ironically, even though they represent polar opposite models in terms of support for the role of religion in public life, States that “heavenly enforce” and those that “heavily restrict” religion are both motivated to establish a monopoly for their ideologies and, as such, often require force and generally involve discrimination against those that do not share their views. 77. States that enforce its official religion have very high levels of restrictions on freedom of religion or belief and often discriminate against persons belonging to religious minorities, women, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex persons, converts or apostates and non-believers. States with a negative view of religion have equally high levels of restrictions on freedom of religion or belief for any individual manifesting another belief contrary to State atheism. In both cases, the nexus of other interdependent and mutually reinforcing rights is invariably violated too, such as freedoms of opinion, expression, peaceful assembly and association. Thus, in these models, even persons belonging to the numerically majority religion may be subject to repression and persecution. 78. States that have preferences towards religion(s) frequently engage in practices that unduly restrict people’s freedom of religion or belief, in particular religious or belief minorities who may be singled out and discriminated against, as a result of a de facto or de jure “hierarchy of religions”. Those that are preferred by the State generally have a historical presence in the country and the preferential recognition accorded to them may be motivated by a desire to include also religious minorities in nation-building. However, this is often accompanied by discrimination against newer religions, including burdensome requirements for registration, along with denial of recognition, or attempts to maintain interreligious harmony through laws that proscribe religious offence or in other ways privilege the religious collective over individual rights. 79. States that have no identification to religion, being numerically the largest of the three categories, encompass a broad range and diversity of States. The hallmark of this category of States is the stance of treating all religious communities on an equal basis, although they range from those that are more positively inclined towards the role of religion in society to those who seek to privatize religious practice. While many States in this model are predisposed to respect freedom of religion or belief, there are also many challenges, including that of management of conflicts between different human rights. Where there is a high degree of convergence between social values and religious practices, there are fewer clashes between religious freedom and other human rights. However, where there is a plurality of social values, difference-blind policies might de facto create a hierarchy of rights where laws of general effect impose disproportionate burdens on religious minorities, unless there is reasonable accommodation. 80. While these three broad categories serve a useful analytical function, there are also important distinctions. States with “mild” forms of establishment, i.e. where the attachment is symbolic and shorn of any policy or legal significance, seem to have more in common with some versions of the non-identification model, especially where there are strong commitments to equality and non-discrimination, while at the same time recognizing the positive role that religions and beliefs play in society. Likewise, those in the non-identification category, especially those that privilege doctrinal secularism over religious concerns, and pursue difference-blind policies, risk violating 17