A/50/514 English Page 10 rights activities under the direction and authority of the Secretary-General, and entrusted him with the responsibility for, inter alia, promoting and protecting the effective enjoyment by all of all civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights; providing, through the Centre for Human Rights and other appropriate institutions, advisory services and technical and financial assistance; coordinating relevant United Nations education and public information programmes in the field of human rights; engaging in a dialogue with all Governments in the implementation of his/her mandate with a view to securing respect for all human rights; and coordinating the human rights promotion and protection activities throughout the United Nations system. The General Assembly has further decided to give to the High Commissioner a specific mandate relating to the protection of minorities. In its resolution 49/192, the Assembly entrusted the High Commissioner with the responsibility to promote the implementation of the principles contained in the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities and to continue to engage in a dialogue with Governments concerned for that purpose. 33. Protecting the rights of persons belonging to national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities is an imperative deriving from the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action. The World Conference on Human Rights reaffirmed the obligation of States to ensure that persons belonging to minorities may exercise fully and effectively all human rights and fundamental freedoms without any discrimination and in full equality before the law in accordance with the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities. The World Conference further stated that those persons have the right to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practise their own religion and to use their own language in private and in public, freely and without interference or any form of discrimination. 34. It is in the spirit of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action that the High Commissioner situates his activities relating to the rights of minorities. He has repeatedly stressed that the peaceful coexistence of minorities, the harmonious relations among communities and respect for each group’s identity are great assets to the multi-ethnic and multicultural mosaic of our global society. Every individual, every group and every nation finds richness in diversity and can benefit from an exchange of ideas, experiences and views. However, the coexistence of different groups is not always peaceful, and problems relating to minorities are today one of the major sources of international and internal conflicts involving widespread and at times massive human rights violations with severe repercussions for the peace and stability of the community of nations. In this multidimensional context, the question of the protection and promotion of the human rights of persons belonging to national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities is of overriding importance for the respect of human rights generally and central to the promotion of understanding, tolerance and solidarity between and among communities and Governments. 35. At the Fourteenth Regional Conference of European United Nations Associations (Geneva, 7-9 November 1994), speaking on the question of minority rights, the High Commissioner stressed that the State must be the common home of all ethnic, religious and linguistic groups residing in its territory; those groups must enjoy de facto equality and none of their members should be a second-class citizen. He also stated that in situations where there was no /...