human rights defenders in society, the specific risks they face as a result of their work and their protection needs, including in relation to judicial harassment and other abuse. Special attention should also be paid to combating harmful stereotypes among law enforcement agents and public servants in order to discourage the harassment of human rights defenders working on promoting and protecting the rights of marginalized or otherwise vulnerable groups, and to encourage the vigorous investigation of reports of bias-motivated crime and gender-based violence. 104. Human rights defenders who file charges against a person or institution for human rights violations should always be treated with dignity and should be effectively protected from retaliatory charges, arbitrary prosecution and other legal actions. This is particularly important for human rights defenders who engage in strategic human rights litigation, including on behalf of persons belonging to marginalized or otherwise vulnerable groups, and who may be subjected to inappropriately personal, offensive or aggressive questioning by judicial authorities or defence attorneys. “Lawyers should not suffer or be threatened with any sanctions or pressure when acting in accordance with their professional standards,”147 including when they litigate in cases concerning human rights violations against persons belonging to national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities or regarding discrimination. Similarly, witnesses who testify in cases against state officials or institutions concerning alleged human rights violations should be effectively protected from any form of pressure. Arbitrary detention and treatment in detention 105. Article 9 of the ICCPR, Article 5 of the ECHR and Article 7 of the ACHR provide for the right to liberty and security of person and basic safeguards against arbitrary detention. According to the methodology of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, deprivation of liberty is arbitrary, inter alia, when “it is clearly impossible to invoke any legal basis justifying the deprivation of liberty”; when the deprivation of liberty results from the exercise of the rights to freedom of opinion and expression, assembly and association, as well as a number of other fundamental rights and freedoms set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the ICCPR; and when the “total or partial non-observance of the international norms relating to the right to a fair trial […] is of such gravity as to give the deprivation of liberty an arbitrary character”.148 Deprivation of liberty includes police custody, remand detention imprisonment after conviction, house arrest, involuntary hospitalization or committal to a psychiatric institution, among other forms of detention. 147  See “Document of the Fourteenth Meeting of the Ministerial Council”, Brussels Declaration on Criminal Justice Systems, 2006. 148  See information about working methods, “Individual complaints and urgent appeals”, Working Group on Arbitrary Attention, <http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Detention/Pages/Complaints.aspx>. Concerning the second category of cases, the Working Group regards deprivation of liberty as being arbitrary when it “results from the exercise of the rights or freedoms guaranteed by articles 7, 13, 14, 18, 19, 10 and 21 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and, insofar as States parties are concerned, by articles 12, 18, 19, 21, 22, 25, 26 and 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights”. 58 Guidelines on the Protection of Human Rights Defenders