E/CN.4/1999/58/Add.1 page 12 32. It is evident from these figures that the United States of America, which is characterized by an extraordinary religious diversity, offers a mosaic of the world's religions and beliefs. While we find a predominantly European and Judaeo-Christian heritage, which is the historical product of immigration, the multiplicity of denominations in the majority Christian religion and of minorities in the field of religions and beliefs can nevertheless lead to the view that all denominations are minorities. M J. Gunn, an expert on religious freedom, puts it like this: “No denomination has ever constituted a majority in the United States as a whole. In this sense all denominations are minorities in the United States.”. 33. Before going on to consider these “minority” communities, the Special Rapporteur considers that the situation of the majority Catholic and Protestant religions (each being treated here as a monolithic entity, and not in terms of the different trends and communities it may comprise, as considered later in the context of minorities) is satisfactory, apart from some exceptions described below for the minorities, but that they may be practised with less intensity because of their majority position (see for example hate crimes, the Supreme Court decision in the Smith case, the separation between religion and the State, the conflict between the religiously intense and religiously unintense. See also paragraph 49 below in fine). B. Situation of minority communities in the field of religion or belief 1. Situation of Muslims 34. Within the Muslim community, which is characterized by its ethnic and cultural diversity, there are two main trends: on the one hand, the Afro-Americans who between the end of the nineteenth century and the middle of the twentieth century gradually established the Black Muslim community, rejecting a past of slavery associated with forced conversion to Christianity and reconstructing an identity around Islam, which they think of as their original religion; secondly, the “oriental” Muslim community originally established by Lebanese and Syrian immigrants at the end of the nineteenth century and enriched by newcomers from Pakistan, Bangladesh, India and the Middle East from the 1960s onwards. For the last 20 years or so, Islam has been going from strength to strength in the United States, mainly as a result of immigration. 35. Most of the Muslim representatives stressed that their community's situation in the religious sphere was satisfactory compared with that of Muslim minorities in other countries, and even with the position of Muslims living in countries where Islam was the majority religion. They emphasized in particular the freedom that prevailed in general with regard to religious activities, including the practice of worship and religious traditions, the management of religious institutions' affairs and the construction of buildings for religious communities. According to the information received, Muslims have 1,250 mosques and Islamic centres, half of which have been built since 1984. There are also about 100 weekday schools, 1,000 weekend schools and about 1,200 community organizations. Inter-denominational dialogue is also encouraged and developed. Recently, with a view to remedying problems of