A/HRC/46/57/Add.1 cent of extremism-related cases concerned ethnic Uzbeks and 43 per cent concerned ethnic Kyrgyz. 93. These and other factors appear to mean that minority journalists and others who may write on minority and other related matters are very attentive with regard to their use of social media and are passive rather than active in order to avoid any risk of being arrested and intimidated. 94. Overall, the Special Rapporteur has received credible claims of an increased incidence of harassment, and of hostile and threatening environments for civil society organizations, human rights defenders and journalists, including those monitoring and reporting on the situation of minorities. 95. Following the Special Rapporteur’s own observations during his visit, he agrees with his colleagues on the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination that Kyrgyzstan must “take effective measures to ensure that civil society organizations, human rights defenders and journalists, including those working on the rights of ethnic minorities, are able to carry out their work effectively and without fear of reprisals”. 11 96. A number of concerns were expressed in relation to a new concept of citizenship put forward by the Government of Kyrgyzstan which may be perceived as being centred around Kyrgyz ethnicity rather than a national citizenship of all members of the country’s population. Significantly, the new approach contained in the Concept for the Construction of a Civil Nation – Kyrgyz Zharan (“Kyrgyz Citizen”) in the Kyrgyz Republic (2013) states – among other things – that “a civil nation is achieved by creating equal conditions and opportunities for participation of Kyrgyz Zharana in socioeconomic and sociopolitical life, preserving diversity and increasing tolerance in society”. 97. However, the Concept subsequently seems to discard any significant reflection of the country’s multiethnic composition by emphasizing almost exclusively the Kyrgyz language and culture, and not including any role for the languages or cultures of minorities who have a long-standing and significant presence in the country. For example, while the document’s strategic objectives are described as involving opportunities to stimulate and motivate citizens to learn the State language and to improve the quality of its teaching, it does not mention teaching in minority languages as such, referring only to “multilingual education” and the objective of developing “opportunities” for knowledge of official, native and foreign languages. 98. The Policy Framework on Strengthening National Unity and Interethnic Relations focused on creating a national identity that did not explicitly include all ethnicities and may tend to reignite past tensions by symbolically and concretely “leaving out” minorities from that view of the nation, despite their demographic weight. The Special Rapporteur regrets that this policy document seems to signal an evolution that had already been identified by other United Nations monitoring mechanisms, who have previously noted the near absence of minority languages in the media, other than Russian – suggesting a dismissal or disregard of the contributions and relevance of non-Kyrgyz minorities as constituents of the people of Kyrgyzstan. This could also suggest that education in and teaching of minority languages may be demoted, significantly reduced or perhaps even eliminated, which would be inconsistent with the country’s human rights obligations. Other United Nations monitoring mechanisms have identified a number of issues that are of increased concern to the Special Rapporteur if Kyrgyz Zharana is to be interpreted as non-inclusive and be focused almost exclusively on the majority Kyrgyz language and culture. These concerns include the reported reduction in the use of minority languages in education, regardless of the so-called “multilingual” education that is promoted, which does not appear to include to any significant extent the use of Kyrgyz, English or Russian as languages of instruction. Unfortunately, the Special Rapporteur’s observations suggest decreased space for minorities and their languages and cultures, particularly in education for the Uzbek minority, rather than any tangible acknowledgment or inclusion. 11 16 Ibid., para. 9.