A/HRC/10/8/Add.4 page 9 Catholics and Shi’a Muslims. During her visit, the Special Rapporteur was impressed by the high level of tolerance in the society with regard to the religious diversity that exists in Turkmenistan. She noticed that an important portion of Turkmenistan’s population displays a dispassionate, yet respectful, attitude towards religion. This attitude is conducive to the climate of religious harmony which prevails in Turkmenistan’s society and inter-religious violence is uncommon. 21. Over the past eight years, the mandate has however received reports of serious violations of freedom of religion or belief allegedly perpetrated by the authorities and the Special Rapporteur has sent a number of communications to the Government in this regard.4 There were reports of arrests, intimidation, harassment and restrictions on the religious activities of individuals and groups. During her visit, the Special Rapporteur was told by virtually all of her interlocutors that the situation has much improved since 2007. Nevertheless, individuals and religious communities still face a number of difficulties when manifesting their freedom of religion or belief. There continue to be reports - though fewer - that unregistered and registered religious organizations are under tight scrutiny. Reportedly, the authorities have summoned certain believers, investigated their religious convictions and pressured them to leave their jobs. Problematic legislative provisions and arbitrary or abusive implementation need to be addressed at all levels and there remains tight state control on all religious communities. In the following, the Special Rapporteur will focus on her main issues of concern such as registration of religious organizations, the role of the Council on Religious Affairs, places of worship, religious material, religious education, proselytism and conscientious objection. B. Registration 22. According to article 11 of the Religious Organizations Law, the registration of a religious organization is conducted by the Ministry of Justice upon the application submitted by the Council on Religious Affairs. At the time of the visit of the Special Rapporteur, there were 122 registered religious organizations, of which 94 were Sunni Muslim, 13 were Russian Orthodox, 5 were Shi’a Muslim, and 10 were from other religious communities, such as Bahai, Baptist, Hare Krishna and Protestant. In addition, five applications submitted by the Council on Religious Affairs were being considered by the Ministry of justice and three other applications were being reviewed by the Council on Religious Affairs. 23. As done previously in her report to the Commission on Human Rights (see E/CN.4/2005/61, paras. 55-58), the Special Rapporteur would like to refer to some points of the OSCE/ODIHR Guidelines for Review of Legislation pertaining to Religion or Belief5 which are 4 See A/55/280, paras. 48-52; A/56/253, paras. 68-70; A/57/274, paras. 55-56; A/58/296, paras. 94-98; E/CN.4/2004/63, paras. 97-98; E/CN.4/2005/61/Add.1, paras. 263-281; E/CN.4/2006/5/Add.1, paras. 365-389; A/HRC/4/21/Add.1, paras. 291-307; A/HRC/7/10/Add.1, paras. 250-254. 5 See Guidelines for review of legislation pertaining to religion or belief, prepared by the OSCE/ODIHR advisory panel of experts on freedom of religion or belief in consultation with the European Commission for democracy through law (available online at www.osce.org/ publications/odihr/2004/09/12361_142_en.pdf).