A/HRC/34/21 Security Agency. Following a national campaign and efforts by OHCHR to press the Office of the President for their release, the majority were released. B. Work to strengthen capacity 21. The eleventh anniversary of the annual Minorities Fellowship Programme, which was held from 7 to 25 November in Geneva, was celebrated in 2016. The Programme had two linguistic components, English and Russian, and the fellows came from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cameroon, Colombia, Egypt, India, Iraq, Japan, Kyrgyzstan, the Republic of Moldova, Pakistan and Ukraine. The fellowship aims at providing human rights advocates from minority groups with in-depth knowledge of the United Nations human rights system in order to reinforce their advocacy skills and thereby enable more effective use of international human rights standards and mechanisms. 22. An evaluation of the Programme was conducted for an overview as to its impact on the professional progress of the fellows, as well as that of their organizations and communities. The evaluation indicated that following their training in Geneva, several fellows had organized local, national and regional capacity-building workshops on minority rights and others had aligned their organizations’ activities with the work of treaty bodies and special procedures, thereby strengthening implementation, follow-up and monitoring of compliance with international human rights standards on the ground. For example, a former fellow from Colombia organized training in his organization for over 300 minority youth leaders on United Nations instruments and mechanisms specific to minorities. 23. A national component of the Fellowship Programme is run by OHCHR at its field presences. The fellowships run for between three and six months and are designed to provide on-the-job training for the fellows. This year, with a view to strengthening continuity of work on minority issues, two national fellows were posted to OHCHR country/field offices in Colombia and the Republic of Moldova and one to the Office of the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Sri Lanka. The fellow in Colombia was involved in efforts to support consultation with and engagement of people of African descent in the ongoing peace process. In Sri Lanka, the fellow was asked to support the preparation of the official country visit of the Special Rapporteur on minority issues in October 2017. 24. OHCHR held a capacity-building course on minority rights in the Republic of Moldova from 10 to 12 May 2016. The course was designed to help make the United Nations country team, representatives of national human rights institutions and civil society actors more effective advocates of the need for the State to improve its implementation of international and national standards in the field of minority rights. It was organized in furtherance of the guiding principles and recommendations established in the 2013 guidance note of the Secretary-General on racial discrimination and the protection of minorities. 25. Moreover, on 1 June, OHCHR participated in a European Parliament hearing in Brussels on linguistic diversity and language discrimination in the European Union. OHCHR was represented on two panels: one on the European and international norms on regional or minority language rights and another on better implementation of existing mechanisms. 26. On 24 November, OHCHR organized a side event on promoting and protecting minority rights through visual art during the Forum on Minority Issues to raise awareness of anti-discrimination and minority rights. Three cartoonists were chosen to produce compelling cartoons that portray the need to protect minority rights while sending the message that securing minority rights leads to stability and peace. The cartoonists were Ángel Boligán Corbo (Cuba), Godfrey Mwampembwa (Kenya) and Hani Abbas (Syrian 7