E/CN.4/2001/0063 page 30 Norway 109. Pursuant to the Religious Knowledge and Education in Ethics Act of October 1995, the teaching of Christianity and Christian ethics is reported to be mandatory in primary and secondary schools. On special grounds, exemptions from specific religious activities such as prayer may be granted, but students may not forgo instruction in the subject as a whole. It is reported that representatives of the Muslim Council and the Humanist Association contested this law in the courts; their challenge was dismissed at first instance and is now at the appeal stage. Uganda 110. On 17 March 2000, the bodies of at least 500 members of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God are said to have been discovered by the police in a church near Kanunga. The evidence points to a collective suicide. On 27 March 2000, in Rugazi, the police reportedly discovered the bodies of another 70 members of this movement in a garden belonging to an official of this organization. On 2 April 2000, in Kanunga, Vice-President Specioza Kazibwe announced that at least 1,000 members of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God had died, while its leaders were apparently still alive. Uzbekistan 111. It is reported that the authorities have not granted the necessary permission to the Evangelical Baptist Church to hold its summer camp, whereas other, non-Baptist camps have been authorized. Evangelical Baptist representatives have interpreted this measure as official opposition to the presence of an active Baptist community in the country. The authorities have apparently refused to register a Baptist church in the town of Gazalkent for the reason that members of the congregation were undesirables and should join the Russian Orthodox Church. 112. On 1 and 6 May 2000 the authorities reportedly arrested eight individuals for their alleged links with the religious party Hiz-ut-Tahir. In July 2000, Kamoletdin Sattarov was said to have been sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment for possession of five religious leaflets. Pakistan 113. On 26 April 2000, in Khanewal, in the central Punjab Province, Farrukh Barjees Tahir, a lawyer and district Vice-Chairman of the Pakistani Shiite Muslim Party, and his clerk were reportedly assassinated by two unidentified individuals. This attack apparently occurred three years after the assassination in Khanewal of the lawyer’s father, at the time Vice-Chairman of the aforementioned party. In 1997, two members of a Sunni extremist group were arrested and prosecuted in connection with this case. 114. It is reported that on 17 March 2000 in Saeedabad, a suburb of Faisalabad, at least 200 Muslim extremists attacked a Christian community as a punishment against Ashiq Masih, who had apparently decided to return to the Christian faith after his conversion to Islam. The police were alerted and intervened, but arrested Ashiq Masih on the orders of the Deputy Commissioner of Faisalabad. It is claimed that the latter was acting on a complaint by a Muslim extremist.