Children take part in training in Osijek for Croatian teachers on ODIHR teaching tools for combatting anti-Semitism, 14 November. (OSCE/Norbert Hinterleitner) 45 Semitism in their own countries and to elaborate on the initiatives that are being undertaken to counter it. Recommendations formulated at this meeting included calls for states to increase their efforts to collect data on anti-Semitic hate crimes and incidents, to provide better training for police and governmental officials on how to respond to hate crimes, and to intensify educational approaches to addressing intolerance. ODIHR staff also accompanied Rabbi Baker on eight country visits — to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Hungary, Latvia, Romania, Slovakia, Spain and the United States. These included two visits Rabbi Baker undertook together with Ambassador Adil Akhmetov, the Personal Representative on Combating Intolerance and Discrimination against Muslims, and Mario Mauro, the Personal Representative on Combating Racism, Xenophobia and Discrimination, also focusing on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians and Members of Other Religions. The visits, to Canada and the United States, provided ODIHR with an opportunity to present its work directly to participating States and to discuss possibilities for co-operation with governments and civil society in these countries. Promoting Freedom of Religion or Belief In the OSCE area, freedom of religion or belief encompasses a complex spectrum of issues, such as the status of religious or belief communities, the relationship between religious or belief communities and states, the ODIHR Annual Report 2009 autonomy of religious or belief communities, and the transposition of international norms and standards into domestic legal and administrative frameworks. It also includes other related questions, such as religious education, the right to express and disseminate religious beliefs, the relationship between freedom of expression and freedom of religion or belief, and the issue of religious symbols. One of the main ways in which ODIHR promotes freedom of religion or belief is by facilitating dialogue between OSCE bodies, participating States and religious groups. With this in mind, ODIHR hosted a number of meetings and discussions on related issues in 2009. For example, the annual meeting of the Advisory Council (the steering committee of ODIHR’s 62-member Advisory Panel of Experts on Freedom of Religion or Belief) was held in Vienna, in February, in order to discuss specific issues and future work in this field. It was agreed that a second edition of Guidelines for Review of Legislation Pertaining to Religion of Belief was needed in order to update developments in international standards related to religion or belief, as well as to refine and clarify certain sections of the first edition. In addition to the Advisory Council meeting, the topic of freedom of religion or belief was the subject of one of the SHDMs last year. The meeting in Vienna, in July, provided a forum for nearly 300 participants, including representatives of 100 civil society organizations, and provided an opportunity to take stock of the status of freedom of religion or belief in the OSCE region since the last SHDM on the subject, which was held in 2003. In addition to discussing a number Tolerance and Non-discrimination