E/CN.4/2005/18/Add.3 page 9 and harass civilian groups whom they perceive to be close to the opposition parties, particularly in the capital; and that human rights defenders are also regularly subjected to harassment and persecution when they attempt to speak out in public on human rights violations around the country. 19. In the area of the administration of justice, the Special Rapporteur has received disturbing information. It would appear that judicial mechanisms in the zones occupied by the Forces Nouvelles have ceased to function. There are also regrettable shortcomings in the government-controlled zone. The Special Rapporteur was told that, in some regions, including Daloa, no assize court has sat for a year. There is no judicial system at all in the “zone of confidence”, controlled by ECOWAS forces and Licorne. This situation fosters the climate of impunity reported by various sources, which is held to be at least partly responsible for the continuing cycle of violence and human rights violations. 20. In addition, the proliferation of weapons, armed groups and militias represents, in the Special Rapporteur’s view, a real threat to the safety of persons and property and has the direct effect of militarizing Ivorian society as a whole and weakening its control mechanisms. According to reports, militias such as the Jeunes patriotes (Young Patriots), who are generally seen as pro-Government, are responsible for numerous violations, including harassment of journalists they see as close to the opposition parties. They also apparently destroy retailers’ stocks of newspapers judged to be too close to the Forces Nouvelles.5 21. After the Special Rapporteur’s visit, these reports and allegations of xenophobic violence were given substance by the violence that broke out following a march organized on 25 March 2004 by seven parties belonging to the Government of National Reconciliation, to protest against the obstacles preventing the Government from working and to urge the full and unhindered implementation of the Linas-Marcoussis Agreement. The Special Rapporteur notes in particular that the report of the Commission of Inquiry on the events connected with the march planned for 25 March 2004 in Abidjan states that certain communities were specially targeted, including those from the north of the country or from neighbouring countries (notably Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger) who were subjected to major violations of human rights, including summary and extrajudicial execution, torture, arbitrary detention and disappearance.6 II. ACTION BY THE GOVERNMENT A. The question of recognition of the existence of discrimination 22. In any society, the sine qua non for the success of credible efforts to combat xenophobia in all its forms is the objective recognition of its existence. In the case of Côte d’Ivoire, the Special Rapporteur observed a certain ambivalence on this issue on the part of the public authorities. On the one hand, the Special Rapporteur found in these meetings a more or less explicit acknowledgement that certain actions may have xenophobic implications, but these were described by some as apparently unavoidable “side effects of coexistence”. Yet there was also a real reluctance, if not a refusal, on the part of the representatives of many administrations to admit that there is in fact a xenophobic tendency within Ivorian society. The Special Rapporteur believes that what he witnessed was the difficult transition between the dawning awareness of the xenophobic nature of much of the political violence and an overt admission explicitly acknowledging it. This ambivalence can also be seen in the fact that the same officials, for all