A/75/329 COVID-19 pandemic; of those, 45 were propaganda offences in violation of sections 86 and 86 (a) of the Criminal Code. 14. Additionally, the Government noted that the Federal Criminal Police Office, which monitored right-wing extremist politically motivated crime on the Internet, had been tracking conspiracy theories about COVID-19 that were spread primarily on social media platforms. Those theories accused Jewish individuals, asylum seekers and migrants of being responsible for the creation and spread of COVID-19, while claiming that the Government was using the pandemic to its advantage. 15. The Government reported that the Federal Agency for Civic Education worked to educate and to increase awareness of the threat posed by antisemitism by organizing expert conferences and providing online and printed materials. Following an attack on a synagogue in 2019, the Government had passed the Act to Combat Right-wing Extremism and Hate Crime, which required operators of social networks with at least 2 million users to delete criminal posts and report them to the Federal Criminal Police Office. The Government stated that it was working to expand the scope of current criminal offences, increase existing sentencing ranges for Internet based crimes, and make it clear that antisemitic motives constituted an aggravating circumstance. 16. Finally, the Government provided examples of materials that, it reports, addressed and worked to eliminate antisemitism in the context of COVID-19. Islamic Republic of Iran 17. The Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran stated that equality and freedom from all forms of discrimination were among the pillars of its Constitution and were supported by its people’s moral and religious values. Several articles from its Constitution protected the freedom and security of religious minorities. According to the Government, articles 19 and 20 emphasized religious equality, while article 13 guaranteed that religious minorities were free to follow the religious teachings of their choosing and practise their own rituals. The Government noted that article 23 clearly forbade the conducting of investigations on the basis of a person’s opinion. 18. The Government reported on legal protections for religious minorities, such as Islamic criminal jurisprudence and the Iranian Charter of Citizens’ Rights. According to the Government, those legal instruments criminalized hate speech and discrimination on the basis of ethnic, racial or religious identity. Finally, the Government reported that Iranian Jews enjoyed the full benefits of Iranian citizenship, including religious freedom. It noted that Iranian Jews had th eir own representative in Parliament, exclusive youth organizations, cultural centres, libraries, and more. Italy 19. The Government of Italy reported that the Observatory for Security against Acts of Discrimination, a multi-agency body fighting discriminatory crimes, was monitoring cases of antisemitism. During the month of February 2020, it had registered about 30 episodes of intolerance and violence against minorities in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic. Most victims were foreign nationals from China; some were Filipino, Japanese or Dominican. 20. The Government stated that it had taken several steps to combat antisemitism and related propaganda. In 2019, the Observatory for Security against Acts of Discrimination had contributed to a European project aimed at educating law 20-11206 5/23