A/75/211 (Europe, Asia-Pacific, the Africa and Middle East Region and the Americas), the 2020 regional forums had to be postponed to the second half of the year because of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. It is hoped that it will be possible to hold two regional forums in the last quarter of 2020 on the theme of hate speech and incitement to hatred against persons belonging to minorities through social media, which will also be the focus of the thirteenth annual Forum on Minority Issues. C. Country missions 8. The Special Rapporteur undertook a country visit to Kyrgyzstan from 6 to 17 December 2019. The mission report will be presented to the Human Rights Council at its forty-sixth session, in March 2021. D. Forum on Minority Issues 9. Information on the twelfth session of the Forum on Minority Issues, held on 28 and 29 November 2019 on the theme “Education, Language and the Human Rights of Minorities”, can be found in the annual report of the Special Rapporteur to the Human Rights Council for 2020 (see A/HRC/43/47, paras. 71–77). The Special Rapporteur wishes to highlight the very high levels of interest and participation in 2019: almost 1,000 participants were registered, of whom more th an 600 were registered to participate in the Forum on Minority Issues and more than 300 participants for the regional forums. For the first time, international sign language interpretation was provided during the annual Forum in Geneva in recognition of users of sign languages as members of a linguistic minority. The thirteenth session of the Forum will focus on hate speech, social media and minorities and will be held in Geneva on 19 and 20 November 2020. E. Communications 10. In 2019, a total of 51 communications were sent to Governments and other stakeholders, all jointly with other special procedure mandate holders. Of those, 13 were urgent appeals, 32 were letters of allegation and 6 were letters commenting on and raising concerns over specific legislation, policies and practices. 11. The largest number of communications (29) dealt with cases pertaining to ethnic minorities, while 11 communications concerned religious minorities, 2 communications addressed issues pertaining to the rights of linguistic minorities and 9 related to more than one category of minorities or to minorities in general. They addressed human rights violations, such as persecution and violence against persons belonging to minorities, including human rights defenders, as well as arbitrary detention and torture, restrictions on and limitations to religious freedoms and the discriminatory application of counter-terrorism laws and citizenship laws, excessive use of force by law enforcement, forced evictions, discrimination in the area of education and the impact of development projects and of business activities on the human rights of minorities. 2 F. Awareness-raising and other activities 12. The Special Rapporteur considers awareness-raising activities as an essential component of his mandate, particularly in the light of the need to highlight and __________________ 2 4/20 For details of all communications sent and information received under the mandate, see https://spcommreports.ohchr.org/Tmsearch/TMDocuments. 20-09835