E/CN.4/2003/24 page 15 many reports on the situation of the Roma indicate that they are more likely to receive harsh sentences for crimes committed, to be kept for longer periods in pre-trial detention and to have difficulty in realizing the right of access to legal counsel. Human rights groups have also found that Roma people tend to be discriminated against in educational institutions and that in regard to housing, they are often the victims of forcible evictions from their homes and suffer residential segregation. 35. On 1 October 2002, the Council of Europe produced its final report on the European Roma Forum, including recommendations of the informal Exploratory Group studying the setting up of a pan-European Roma Advisory Board. This initiative explores ways of ensuring adequate Roma participation in the decision-making processes affecting their lives, by creating a sort of consultative assembly to represent them at the pan-European level. The report discusses the size, composition and selection procedures for a European Roma Forum and the institutional links between the Forum and the Council of Europe, as well as areas of cooperation with international organizations such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the United Nations. 36. At the international level, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), the Human Rights Committee and various other treaty bodies have taken up the question of discrimination against the Roma in a number of concluding observations on States parties’ reports.2 Furthermore, at its fifty-seventh session CERD adopted General Recommendation XXVI of 16 August 2000, specifically on the question of discrimination against Roma. In it, CERD lists a number of measures that can be adopted by States to combat discrimination against the Roma people and to guarantee their protection. Specifically, CERD proposes measures: against racial violence, to improve living conditions, in the field of the media, concerning participation in public life and requests States parties to include, in their periodic reports, data about the Roma communities within their jurisdiction. 37. The Special Rapporteur notes with appreciation that there is currently an overwhelming concern about the situation of Roma populations in many European countries that his mandate has contributed to highlight. The important developments taking place at the regional level to enhance participation of the Roma in decision-making processes and the recommendations that have been issued at the international level in regard to the protection of their rights are positive trends that the Special Rapporteur intends to support. He will, therefore, continue to monitor the situation of Roma and report to the Commission on Human Rights. C. Anti-Semitism 38. The Special Rapporteur has received from the Government of Israel and from several Jewish NGOs allegations of the large-scale distribution in the Middle East and in Europe of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This notoriously anti-Semitic book is an early twentieth-century forgery reporting a plot by the Jews at a Zionist congress to sabotage Christianity and take over the world. The document apparently appeared for the first time in Russia in 1905 and was distributed abroad during the twentieth century, thus fostering anti-Semitism. In one Middle Eastern country, a private television channel has allegedly produced and shown the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in a 41-episode series. The Special Rapporteur has put the matter to the authorities of the countries concerned by this anti-Semitic propaganda.