E/CN.4/1999/58/Add.1 page 26 with problematical situations, which are described as exceptions, involving hate crimes, the Supreme Court's decision in the Smith case and religion at the workplace, the community is displaying real vigour both through the dialogue between religions and through a militancy in making claims and seeking to promote greater awareness in the field of religion. The Muslim community 76. The situation of Muslims is distinctly less favourable, although taken all in all it is not negative. The Muslim community can certainly flourish freely in the religious sphere, but it has to be recognized that there is an islamophobia reflecting both racial and religious intolerance. This is not the fault of the authorities, but of very harmful activity by the media in general and the popular press in particular, which consists in putting out a distorted and indeed hate-filled message treating Muslims as extremists and terrorists. American public opinion - and hence society - is thus informed and formed - by negative representations of the Muslims. The Special Rapporteur raises the question of the responsibility of the media for manifestations - direct or indirect, intentional or not - of racial and religious intolerance and discrimination in society, on the part of citizens, but also of officials acting on their own initiative and of private corporations, manifestations which may be marginal, but nevertheless do really affect Muslims. It is up to the public authorities to help combat the iniquitous representation of Muslims. Here the Special Rapporteur would like to acknowledge the initiatives taken by President Clinton and his Government directly or indirectly for the benefit of Muslims and aimed at the development of strategies for preventing intolerance and discrimination based on religion. Efforts to combat the ignorance and intolerance purveyed by the media, above all through preventive measures in the field of education, should be given priority. The interdenominational dialogue practised in certain States, particularly California, as was evident at the time of the Gulf war, can also serve as an example to the international community. The activities of the Interreligious Council of Southern California deserve to be better known and should be taken as a model. Other communities in the field of religion or belief 77. The situation of Asian religions (Buddhism, Hinduism, etc.) and “marginal” religions (Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons outside Utah, Seventh-Day Adventists, Assembly of God, etc.) is generally satisfactory. There are of course exceptions, such as cases of discrimination at the workplace, and obstacles relating to places of worship and attacks on them. These obstacles and acts of discrimination are sometimes the consequences of the Smith case and a form of secularism, as explained in the section on the constitutional clauses. They can also be interpreted in a general way as manifestations of a conflict between intense religion and unintense religion. In accordance with this interpretation, it appears finally that in general the position of minority communities in the sphere of religion or belief corresponds to that of the majority Christian communities, with the proviso that any difficulties encountered by the latter are less acute precisely because of their majority status.