A/HRC/43/48/Add.1 Human Rights). 1 In July 2019, following its review of the fifth periodic report of the Netherlands, the Human Rights Committee made several recommendations aimed at addressing its concerns that the country’s partial ban on face-covering clothing might restrict rights beyond the level of necessity and proportionality and about the persistent hate speech being used against ethnic and religious minorities (CCPR/C/NLD/CO/5). In their concluding observations, adopted between 2015 and 2017, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD/C/NLD/CO/19-21), the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW/C/NLD/CO/6) and the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (E/C.12/NLD/CO/6) raised concern about xenophobic speech and discriminatory stereotypes in politics and the media, especially towards Jews, Muslims and, more broadly, women; migration and integration policy and services; employment discrimination, especially against women; reporting of discrimination; civil society engagement; police profiling; and the insufficiency of educational and other concrete measures for tackling the root causes of discrimination, including in the National Human Rights Action Plan. 6. Further to this, recent cases reported to the Human Rights Committee under the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights raise serious concern about the treatment of asylum seekers, including children (CCPR/C/125/D/2489/2014), and acts of incitement to hatred towards Moroccan Muslims that were promoted by political actors and government officials (CCPR/C/117/D/2124/2011). 7. The Netherlands extended a standing invitation to the Human Rights Council special procedure mandate holders in 1998 and seven mandate holders have visited the country since then. In October 2019, the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance found evidence that Dutch national identity was implicitly or even explicitly restricted or qualified on ethnic and religious bases, and that Islam was repeatedly represented as inherently opposed to Dutch national identity and even to liberal democracy. She noted that there was a very real danger that insisting that the Dutch vision of equality and inclusiveness was already a fact when it was not could stand in the way of doing the very difficult work that was required to transform commitments into reality. 2 In July 2014, the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent expressed particular concern about incidents of racist and xenophobic speech emanating from a few extremist political parties and recommended that greater attention be paid to cases of incitement to hatred, discrimination and violence in the media (A/HRC/30/56/Add.1, paras. 96 and 99). The Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief has not transmitted a communication to the Netherlands since 1995. 8. Issues related to discrimination against religious and ethnic minorities in employment, health care, housing and at asylum centres were raised in 2017 at the review of the Netherlands during the third cycle of the universal periodic review. 3 The Government received 16 recommendations related to freedom of religion or belief and accepted 13 of them. 9. The Special Rapporteur welcomes the efforts made by the Government to promote international standards on freedom of religion or belief at home and abroad and commends it on having convened the conference of the Istanbul Process for Combating Intolerance, Discrimination and Incitement to Hatred and/or Violence on the Basis of Religion or Belief, held on 18 and 19 November 2019 in The Hague. He also welcomes the appointment in June 2019 of a special envoy on religion and belief. 1 2 3 The Netherlands does not accept individual petitions under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child or the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. End of mission statement of the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, at the conclusion of her mission to the Netherlands (The Hague, 7 October 2019). See the database of recommendations made during the universal periodic review. 3