E/CN.4/2005/61 page 15 42. The Special Rapporteur insists in this respect that the human rights obligations of States are not limited to abstaining from committing direct violations of the right to freedom of religion or belief. Their obligations also consist in ensuring the free exercise of freedom of religion or belief by protecting religious minorities and enabling them to practise their faith in all security. States also have an obligation to bring the perpetrators of acts of violence or of other acts of religious intolerance to justice and to promote a culture of religious tolerance. 43. The situations referred to by the Special Rapporteur are mainly those prevailing in India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Indonesia, and Bangladesh. 44. With regard to the situation prevailing in Iraq, especially with regard to religious minorities living on the territory, the Special Rapporteur urges the Government as well as the States that take an active part in providing security to the country to ensure to the maximum extent, the exercise of freedom of religion or belief. C. Conversions 45. The Special Rapporteur has addressed the issue of conversion in a number of communications, in which she used the term to include situations where there has been an alleged infringement on the freedom to change, maintain or adopt a religion or a belief. While these communications have not very often dealt with situations where people had been arrested, tried or otherwise challenged because they had converted to another religion, there were a number of cases of persons being arrested because of their beliefs, and where there had been an attempt to force them to renounce or abandon their faith. This has been the case in communications sent to the Governments of China, Saudi Arabia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Egypt, and Turkmenistan. 46. The Special Rapporteur considers such acts as unacceptable forms of violations of the right to freedom of religion or belief because, in essence, they limit or tend to limit the freedom of thought or conscience itself (or what is sometimes called the “forum internum”), which, according to the main international instruments, forms the part of the right to freedom of religion or belief that is not susceptible to any limitation. 47. In this regard, the Special Rapporteur emphasizes that, according to general comment No. 22 of the Human Rights Committee, freedom to “have or to adopt” a religion or belief necessarily entails the freedom to choose a religion or belief, including the right to replace one’s current religion or belief with another or to adopt atheistic views, as well as the right to retain one’s religion or belief. Article 18, paragraph 2, of the Covenant bars coercion that would impair the right to have or adopt a religion or belief, including the use of threat of physical force or penal sanctions to compel believers or non-believers to adhere to their religious beliefs and congregations, to recant their religion or belief or to convert. Policies or practices having the same intention or effect, such as those restricting access to education, medical care, employment or the rights guaranteed by article 25 and other provisions of ICCPR, are similarly inconsistent with this article. The same protection is enjoyed by holders of all beliefs of a non-religious nature.3