A/HRC/10/8/Add.4 page 20 Recommendations 63. Several provisions of the amended Religious Organizations Law are incompatible with international human rights standards and contradict the Constitution of Turkmenistan in some instances. The Special Rapporteur urges the Government to review the Religious Organizations Law, so that it no longer infringes on the rights of individuals and groups in their exercise of freedom of religion or belief. In doing so, the Government should ensure that interested stakeholders at the national level be included in the reviewing process, in order to offer them the opportunity to provide valuable input to the revised draft legislation. Likewise, the Special Rapporteur is of the view that recommendations of relevant international or regional organizations relating to the revision of the Religious Organizations Law should be considered carefully. The Special Rapporteur remains available if further comments on draft legislation on religious issues are deemed necessary. 64. The Special Rapporteur recommends that the prohibition on unregistered religious activities be removed from the Religious Organizations Law. The registration procedures should be amended so as to be non-discriminatory, especially towards religious minorities. In addition, once registered by the Ministry of Justice in Ashgabat, a religious organization should be entitled to operate on the entire national territory. However, if for formal reasons, regional and local authorities would require registration at their levels, then the registration procedures should not be cumbersome. They should be clear, quick and easy in order to allow branches of religious organizations to operate freely at the regional or local levels. 65. Undue restrictions on religious material, education and attire should also be removed from the Religious Organizations Law. The Special Rapporteur recommends that the Government of Turkmenistan remains neutral on religious matter and does not interfere in religious education. Imams should be allowed to receive religious education in other institutions as well as in the Faculty of History of the Magtymuly Turkmen State University and non-Sunni Muslim religious communities should be allowed to have their own religious training institutions if they so desire. Likewise, the Government should ensure that all religious communities are able to teach members about their beliefs in public or in private. The Special Rapporteur would therefore encourage the Government to revise articles 6 and 9 of the Religious Organizations Law accordingly. 66. The Government should ensure that religious communities incur no obstructions with regard to the building, opening, renting or use of places of worship and that they are not deprived of their places of worship. In cases where such deprivation is justified by lawful reasons and after judicial review, it should provide the religious community concerned with a suitable alternative place of worship. In addition, the Government shall also ensure that religious communities are able to meet in private places of worship without state interference. 67. On the Council on Religious Affairs, although the Special Rapporteur has noticed that its members in Ashgabat have recently adopted a more progressive attitude towards registration of religious minority groups, this change of attitude does not seem to have reached the Council’s regional representatives yet. She would like to recommend that the Council on Religious Affairs, both at national and regional levels, change its orientation, so