A/HRC/37/49/Add.1 considered the second periodic report of Albania in 2012, and the country’s rights record was reviewed by the Human Rights Committee and the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in 2013. In July 2016, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women reviewed the country’s related rights record. Throughout, Albania has constructively and in a self-critical manner engaged with the Committees reviewing its human rights policies and practices. 6. The Government had its second universal periodic review in April 2014. Out of 171 recommendations, Albania accepted 167 and took note of 4 (on the prohibition of discrimination based on nationality, on discrimination against “Egyptian” communities, on differentiated treatment for national and ethnolinguistic minorities and on the protection of national minorities with regard to ensuring the teaching of and instruction in their mother tongue). None of the recommendations were directly related to freedom of religion or belief. The third universal periodic review of Albania is scheduled for May 2019. 7. Albania issued a standing invitation to the special procedures mandate holders in 2009 and has since been visited by the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions (in 2010), the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants (2011) and the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (December 2016). The complaints mechanism within the special procedures mechanism allows mandate holders to intervene directly with Governments on behalf of individuals or about issues of concern based on allegations of violations of human rights that fall within the scope of their mandates by means of letters of allegations, urgent appeals and other communications. The Special Rapporteur on the right to freedom of religion or belief has not sent any communications to the Government. B. Religious and belief make-up 8. The legal, political and social arrangements on which protections for the right to freedom of religion or belief in Albania can be best understood when placed in their historical, national and geopolitical contexts. Several interlocutors stressed that the historical legacy of the Communist era have influenced and shaped the situation of freedom of religion or belief in the country and the Government’s current relationship vis-à-vis faith communities. That legacy includes the categorical proscription of religious beliefs and activities by the government of Enver Hoxha and the confiscation of legal holdings and properties that belonged to religious communities. Today, the restoration of holdings that once belonged to religious communities and which were confiscated by the then government or forcibly appropriated remains an area of primary concern for both faith communities and the Government, and both are working towards resolving it in a proper manner. Several officials spoke about the Government’s affinity for secularism and its reluctance to get too involved or entangled with the affairs of faith communities. 9. Albania declared its independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1912, but was conquered by Italy in 1939 and occupied by Germany in 1943. Communist partisans took over the country in 1944. Albania allied itself first with the Soviet Union (until 1960), then with China (to 1978). After the Second World War, Communist Party leader Enver Hoxha, through a combination of ruthlessness and strategic alliances, managed to preserve the territorial integrity and peace in Albania over the next 40 years. He did this, in part, by subjecting the population to purges, shortages, repression of civil and political rights, a total ban on religious observance and increased isolation. Albania adhered to a strict policy of independence and Stalinist philosophy, eventually withdrawing from the Warsaw Pact in 1968 and alienating its final remaining ally, China, in 1978. 10. From 1944 to 1991, the communist Government in Albania expropriated private property with no compensation, on a large scale. With the transition towards a market economy and parliamentary democracy since 1991, successive Governments have attempted to take steps to address that situation in keeping with their new commitment to respect the right to property. However, 25 years on, they are still struggling to resolve issues such as the regulation of the use of agricultural land, the privatization of residential 4