A/CONF.189/PC.1/7 page 52 113 On this question, see the Employment Division v. Smith case, 494 US 972 (1990), cited in document E/CN.4/1999/58/Add.1. 114 This hypothesis can be applied in the opposite sense, that is, if the group concerned would like to gain acceptance for its own characteristics as a minority when these are not recognized as such by the State. This is the case, for example, of certain Protestant religious associations in the Islamic Republic of Iran (see E/CN.4/1996/95/Add.2, para. 71). It is also the case of the Turks in Germany who wish to have the status of “national minority” like the other two national minorities, the Danes and the Swabians (see E/CN.4/1996/72, para. 23). 115 The concept of “Arab” or “Arabness”, for example, draws more on referents of a cultural nature, which are themselves the product of an ill-defined combination of both religious (that is, basically Muslim) and ethnic backgrounds. 116 The Special Rapporteur on racism cites a number of acts of anti-Semitic violence, including the desecration of cemeteries in Germany (E/CN.4/1996/72, para. 84). 117 See E/CN.4/1995/91, para. 93, and A/51/542/Add.2, para. 44. The law on public order and the Islamic dress code is reportedly applied more strictly outside Khartoum (see A/51/542/Add.2, paras. 51 and 140). 118 See in particular communication No. 94/1981, LSN v. Canada, in “Selected decisions of the Human Rights Committee under the Optional Protocol”, vol. 1 (seventeenth to thirty-second sessions), vol. 2, (October 1982 to April 1988); United Nations, New York, 1991, p. 6. See comparable cases in the decisions of the Committee, ibid. (second to sixth sessions), 1988, pp. 10, 38 and 86. The case in point concerns a Canadian citizen of Indian origin who lost, in accordance with Canadian legislation, her Indian status after marrying a non-Indian. The author maintains that this legislation is discriminatory, pointing out than an Indian man who marries a non-Indian woman does not lose his Indian status. The discrimination can, however, be described as aggravated insofar as the legislation in question is not only sexist but also fails to treat Indian citizens on the same footing as other Canadians belonging, from an ethnic point of view, to the majority of the population. 119 According to the Government of Ghana, the conflict is purely ethnic in nature. 120 The representatives of the “Nation of Islam” reject these accusations and claim that their disagreements with certain Jewish organizations are political in nature. 121 The Cao Dai religion is a mixture of Confucianism, Buddhism and Christianity: its 3 million followers are concentrated in the south of Viet Nam. 122 See Commission on Human Rights resolution 1999/18, of 23 April 1999. 123 Ibid.