E/CN.4/2004/63/Add.1 page 20 103. More alarming are reports reaching the Special Rapporteur to the effect that in 2002 the Ministry of Education approved a primer for 16-year-old schoolchildren containing a chapter entitled “The dangers of religious sects”. The primer does not refer to any groups in particular, but describes certain [s]ects whose activities are banned in other countries because their anti-State, anti-human, and anti-moral preachings have penetrated the country, taking advantage of the difficulties the young State has had establishing itself, the hard socio-economic situation of the population, and our seventy years of living without religion. 104. The authorities explain that investigations have been mounted into matters of this kind, but have had to be broken off owing to the difficulty of identifying those responsible. 105. For technical reasons it was not possible to arrange an interview with the Minister of Education or Ministry staff. The Special Rapporteur believes, nonetheless, that education plays a fundamental role in religious tolerance. IX. RECOMMENDATIONS 106. As regards the prosecution of those responsible for acts of religious violence, the Special Rapporteur calls on the Georgian Government to take steps immediately to investigate all acts of violence or religious intolerance which have been committed in Georgia, to put those responsible on trial within a reasonable period and to take them into custody if the courts order a term of imprisonment or pre-trial detention. 107. The Special Rapporteur also calls on the Georgian authorities to do everything possible to ensure that the alleged victims of such acts of violence or religious intolerance are able to set forth their grievances before the appropriate court properly and without hindrance. 108. The Special Rapporteur draws the Government’s attention in particular to the problems that have surrounded the various hearings into the Mkalavishvili affair. He emphasizes that failure to maintain order in a court of justice has immediate repercussions on respect for international human rights provisions on minimum judicial safeguards. Intimidating or threatening a victim, a witness or a judge is a matter that must be treated with the utmost care, given the extent of its implications on, among other things, the outcome of a case. 109. More particularly, such conduct, when judges are the persons intimidated or threatened, is apt to destabilize the independence of the judiciary, a basic feature of democracy but also an essential safeguard for human rights. 110. The Special Rapporteur accordingly feels that the judicial rules on the conduct of criminal proceedings have to be scrupulously complied with, especially in the case of the proceedings brought against Basil Mkalavishvili. He also considers that, where these