A/59/366 I. Introduction 1. At its forty-second session, the Commission on Human Rights decided, by resolution 1986/20 of 10 March 1986, to appoint for one year a special rapporteur to examine incidents and governmental actions in all parts of the world inconsistent with the provisions of the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief, and to recommend remedial measures for such situations. 2. Pursuant to resolution 1986/20, the Special Rapporteur has submitted, since 1987, 18 general reports to the Commission on Human Rights and 9 interim reports to the General Assembly, together with a total of 17 addenda submitted to the Commission or the Assembly. The present report is submitted in accordance with General Assembly resolution 58/184. 3. By letter of 13 July 2004, the Chairman of the Commission on Human Rights appointed Asma Jahangir as the new Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief. The Special Rapporteur takes this opportunity to express her gratitude to Abdelfattah Amor for the important contribution he has brought to the mandate on freedom of religion or belief between 1993 and 2004. 4. The new Special Rapporteur has formally been in charge of the mandate on freedom of religion or belief since 24 July 2004 and will, therefore, in the present report, limit herself to presenting the communications that have been transmitted by her predecessor as well as the replies received, and will recall the other main achievements in the mandate. She will provide a more general assessment of the situation related to freedom of religion or belief in her next report to the Commission on Human Rights. II. Communications 5. This report covers a total of 39 communications transmitted to 29 States. It also covers the replies of the Governments of Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, China, Egypt, France, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Kyrgyzstan, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Pakistan, the Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, the United States of America, Uzbekistan and Viet Nam to these communications. In this regard, the Special Rapporteur expresses her gratitude to Belarus, the Russian Federation and Uzbekistan for their replies, whose content cannot, for technical reasons, be reflected in the present report. These replies and any received after 31 August 2004 will be covered in her next report to the Commission on Human Rights. 6. The Special Rapporteur would also like to thank the Governments of Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belarus, China, Egypt, Eritrea, Fiji, Greece, Pakistan, Serbia and Montenegro, Slovenia, Sri Lanka, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Turkey, the United States of America and Uzbekistan for their replies to communications transmitted in the context of previous reports submitted to the Commission. The content of these replies will also be reflected in her next report to the Commission on Human Rights. Finally, the Special Rapporteur expresses her gratitude to the Governments of Israel, Turkey and Uzbekistan for having submitted general information on the implementation of human rights, including freedom of religion or belief. 3