E/CN.4/1996/95/Add.2 page 7 II. IMPLEMENTATION OF LEGISLATION AND POLICY IN THE FIELD OF TOLERANCE AND NON-DISCRIMINATION BASED ON RELIGION OR BELIEF A. Situation of recognized religious minorities 23. The Special Rapporteur focused on the situation of the non-Muslim minorities recognized in article 13 of the Constitution, i.e. Zoroastrians, Jews and Christians, and on that of the Sunni Muslim minority. 24. As far as Christians are concerned, the Special Rapporteur deals specifically with Protestants, a recognized minority, in section B of this chapter entitled "Situation of other non-Muslim minorities" (paras. 71 to 85 below), since the situation of this community is basically quite different from that of the other recognized minorities. 1. Non-Muslim minorities 25. In his analysis, the Special Rapporteur combined the information on the Zoroastrian, Jewish, Assyro-Chaldean and Armenian minorities, while taking care to reflect the specific concerns of each one. During his visit, he tried to obtain facts and figures on these minorities from their representatives and the authorities, particularly the Office of Minority Affairs in the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. Minorities Information from representatives of minorities Information from the Office of Minority Affairs Zoroastrians about 60 000 33 000 to 34 000 Jews 30 000 to 40 000 (before the revolution, 70 000) 20 000 to 25 000 Assyro-Chaldeans 40 000 - 50 000 about 17 000 Armenians about 200 000 (15 years ago) about 100 000 26. The figures provided by minority representatives and the authorities are quite different, probably because the minorities use figures prepared before the revolution, while the authorities appear to refer to official numerical representation at the present time. The difference reflects the departure of large numbers of members of minorities for other countries. The minority representatives associate this emigration with, inter alia, the Iran-Iraq war and the difficult economic situation. While many representatives do not deny that departures took place as a result of the Iranian revolution and the establishment of an Islamic State, they stress that pressure was not exerted directly by the regime, but, rather, by foreign countries which perceived the revolution negatively, particularly with regard to the minorities, and urged them to leave Iran.