A/HRC/4/21/Add.1 page 53 woman who has renounced her Muslim faith and embraced Christianity, and the court proceedings are concerned with whether she can renounce Islam and has the right to have the religious affiliation on her identity card deleted. 223. According to the information received, Malik Imtiaz is the subject of death threats by an unknown group, which openly calls for the death of Mr. Imtiaz because of his role as a lawyer in the Lina Joy court case. Such threats include posters, titled “Wanted Dead”, which describes Mr. Imtiaz Sarwar as a betrayer of Islam for his involvement in the Lina Joy court case and an email message circulating on the Internet offers a monetary reward to anyone willing to kill him. Concern is expressed that such threats are linked to the lawful professional activity of Mr. Imtiaz Sarwar as a lawyer and may represent an attempt to intimidate lawyers who take on cases in defence of right to freedom of religion or belief. Observations 224. The Special Rapporteur is concerned that the Government has not responded to her communication dated 23 August 2006 and she is still waiting for a substantive response to the related communication sent on 12 October 2005 concerning the case of Ms. Lina Joy (see E/CN.4/2006/5/Add.1, paras. 246-248). She would like to remind the Government that paragraph 9 of General Comment 22 of the Human Rights Committee states that, “the fact that a religion is recognized as a state religion or that it established as official or traditional or that its followers comprise the majority of the population, shall not result in any impairment of the enjoyment of any of the rights under the Covenant, including articles 18 or 27, nor in any discrimination against adherents to other religions or non-believers.” 225. Furthermore, the Special Rapporteur would like to refer to her framework for communications, more specifically to the international human rights norms and to the mandate practice concerning “Freedom to adopt, change or renounce a religion or belief” (see above para. 1, category I. 1.). The Special Rapporteur considers situations where people are arrested, tried or otherwise challenged because they had converted to another religion as unacceptable forms of violations of the right to freedom of religion or belief because, in essence, they limit or tend to limit the freedom of thought or conscience itself. The Special Rapporteur has already covered the question of conversion in detail in her 2005 report to the General Assembly. She would like to reiterate that (see A/60/399, para. 53) “[i]n the cases where non-State actors interfere with the right to ‘have or adopt a religion or belief of [one’s] choice’, the requirements of article 18 of the Covenant and other relevant international instruments also entail a positive obligation for the State to protect persons from such interference. The Special Rapporteur wishes to re-iterate in this regard that States must ensure that the persons on their territory and under their jurisdiction, including members of religious minorities, can practise the religion or belief of their choice free of coercion and fear. If non-State actors interfere with this freedom, and especially the freedom to change or to maintain one’s religion, the State is obliged to take appropriate measures to investigate, bring the perpetrators to justice and compensate the victims (see also E/CN.4/2005/61, para. 42).”