into highly-contested societal contexts”.225 Community engagement and trusted partnerships are pre-conditions for successful reintegration and rehabilitation of FTFs, as well as broader VERLT prevention. 3.6 Acknowledging and Addressing Direct and Indirect Discrimination Recommendations OSCE participating States should: • Recognize that enhanced focus on promoting equality and non-discrimination must be a central element of all measures to counter FTF-related threats and challenges in line with their human rights obligations, given that persistent discrimination, as well as real or perceived stigmatization and marginalization, fuel FTF recruitment and mobilization; • Ensure that FTF-related laws, policies and practices, are designed and implemented in a way that does not lead to discrimination on any grounds, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status; and • Regularly assess all such laws, policies and practices for potential direct or indirect discriminatory impact, and swiftly amend them where they are found to have such an impact. It is imperative that states recognize the centrality of the right to equality and non-discrimination in their responses to FTF-related threats and challenges. There are concerns about the disproportionate impact that the full range of measures – criminal and administrative ones as well as prevention of VERLT, FTF recruitment and mobilization – have on different religious or belief communities, in particular Muslims and specific ethnic groups. Addressing discrimination is essential for an effective, long-term response to terrorism and potential FTF-related threats that abides by the rule of law. Inequality most commonly arises from the way laws are applied in practice, but it may also be explicitly enshrined in law.226 States must ensure that they avoid arbitrary interference with human rights in their FTF-related laws and policies, for example as a result of unlawful profiling or other discriminatory counter-terrorism practices. Any distinctions must be objectively justifiable and must not target individuals solely on the grounds of their ethnicity, nationality, religion or belief, or other grounds. 225  F. Ní Aoláin and J. Huckerby, “Gendering Counter-terrorism: How to, and How not to – Part II”, op. cit., note 219. 226  Concerns have been expressed, for example, about Tajikistan’s 2015 decree reportedly banning nationals under 35 from traveling to the Islamic holy sites of Mecca and Medina to perform the annual Hajj pilgrimage. See “‘Foreign Terrorist Fighter’ Laws, Human Rights Rollbacks Under UN Security Council Resolution 2178”, Human Rights Watch, p. 14, op. cit., note 130. 62 Guidelines for Addressing the Threats and Challenges of “Foreign Terrorist Fighters”