Human Rights society and on the activities of human rights defenders in particular. Non-governmental organizations often face excessive and unjustified restrictions on their activities, including the application of restrictions on the freedoms of assembly and association. There is a need in some countries to replace restrictive authorization procedures for holding assemblies and registering NGOs with a requirement to provide notification of a planned assembly. Another obstacle faced by human rights defenders is their portrayal by some authorities as unpatriotic or as traitors, in an attempt to sway public opinion against the activities of groups or even against individuals themselves. There are examples of such tactics not only in relation to human rights defenders trying to deal with recent human rights violations but also to those who are trying to uncover past violations. Moreover, female human rights defenders who work on women’s human rights often face the additional charge that they are destroying the traditional fabric of society. The ODIHR follows cases involving harassment and persecution of individual human rights defenders and intervenes with government authorities where appropriate. The ODIHR supports efforts to protect the freedoms of assembly and association in a number of ways, including by offering expert legal advice to governments and OSCE field operations and by organizing meetings that provide a forum to discuss problem areas and suggest relevant solutions. In March, for example, the ODIHR organized a regional conference in Almaty on freedom of assembly and association in Central Asia. Conference participants (governmental and nongovernmental representatives, but no government officials from Uzbekistan or Turkmenistan took part in the conference) adopted a set of recommendations, which include the following points for states to consider: k Taking steps to allow informal association, i.e., unregistered groups; k Simplifying the NGO registration procedure; k Abolishing the mandatory re-registration of NGOs; k Replacing procedures that require prior authorization for public assemblies with a requirement for prior notification only; A young woman carries a bucket of water back to her tent at a camp for Uzbek refugees who fled to Kyrgyzstan security officers in Andijan on 13 May. 54 ERIC GOURLAN following a violent clash with ANNUAL REPORT 2005